Mama On: Happy

"Some days you just have to smile; and some days, you should."

Ever have one of those days when you just wake up with inexplicable joy in your heart and a silly smile on your face?  Pretty much everybody has had one, but we don't remember or cherish them as often as we ought to.  My mother, the original Mamaknologist, thought that we ought to count those days and moments as special opportunities and then spend them liberally on sad, dark days.

I can remember walking into a hospital room to find her sitting in a hospital bed smiling dreamily.  It was on a day when nothing had gone right -- including her routine doctor's visit.  Her blood pressure was climbing rapidly toward stroke level and the doctor had moved to have her immediately hospitalized -- yet there she sat, smiling like a woman gifted with the keys to the Kingdom.

Before I could even ask, she turned the smile on me and said, "Some days you just have to smile." 

For just that one sliver of time, it came clear for me, and I did smile.  In fact, I totally got it, and it made me happy.  The Mamaknowledge of the moment was simple:  even if this was our last moment together, at least we had it.  If this was our last moment together, we could smile about it and share it, and that was a good thing.  This moment was good and we could smile because it made us happy.

All these years later, I can still feel the soft brush of her fingers on my skin and the warmth of her hand in mine and it makes me happy.  I am so glad to have had that oddly happy moment with my mother and it makes me smile.  The Mamaknology of our moment was that you should take your happy where you find it, and you should cherish it just for the glow it gives you. 

Happy is a Good Thing.