Happiness can still be found

My friend and I were in a restaurant having dinner. We promise ourselves we will do this once a month since we don’t live in the same town and must plan our visits, but if we get around to it half that often, we count ourselves lucky. We hadn’t seen each other in months. After we ordered, she said she had something to show me. She pulled out a book she had made from photos of her life in 2008. It was her best year in several decades. 2008? Really? How could there be anyone for whom 2008 was a banner year? What happened?

First of all, nothing bad happened to my friend. No one died. No one was diagnosed with a dreaded disease. She wasn’t taking care of anyone but herself. She didn’t lose her job. She didn’t lose her house. Her cat didn’t die. This was the first year in memory that nothing bad happened. That alone would have put it in contention for a Best Year award.

But there is more. She took a couple of short but restorative excursions. She had fun. Life was good. It was a happy year. I had almost forgotten people had years like that, but as I turned the pages of the book she had put together, I remembered that every once in a while, happiness does strike. Whatever the future holds, she can look at her Book of 2008 and bring back glorious memories. After all she’s been through, she could revel in this past year. She knew how to appreciate it.

My mother is another appreciative soul. After two grueling years of caring for her terminally ill husband, she went to Williamsburg for a few days. She had been only once before but had always loved the architecture and feel of the place. Now she was seeing it for the first time in maybe 30 years.

She dined in taverns. She went to little concerts and toured Bassett Hall, the house the Rockefellers bought to live in while they were overseeing the recreation of Virginia’s colonial capital. She went to a museum and to a service at Bruton Parish Church. There were things she could not do; Colonial Williamsburg is a challenge for older people and anyone with limited mobility, but there was a lot she could do. She was having fun. At one point she said, “I don’t understand it. My feet don’t hurt, and my back doesn’t hurt, and they always hurt.” It is amazing what simply enjoying yourself will do for chronic pain. I promised her and myself that there will be other happy times ahead in 2009. Whatever comes, we will find ways to make it happen.

As I hang my new calendar this year, I am struck by how little I knew about what was going to happen in 2008 as it began. There is no reason 2009 should be less surprising, both the good and the bad. But having seen the light in my friend’s eyes as she handed me her Book of 2008 and having heard my mother wonder aloud how it could be that her constant pain had disappeared, at least for a time, I have decided that a certain amount of happiness, sheer pleasure, is essential. I know the wise ones tell us that seeking it is not the way to find it. I know there are people who believe that we have spent far too much time and money trying to make ourselves happy while shirking our responsibilities. I am sure there is truth in what they say, but I just wish I could show them the light in my mother’s eyes. It is important. It matters. 

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.