Photo: Babes in the grass

Exercising Happiness

I was avoiding doing the boring stuff, stuff I had done yesterday and, barring anything fascinating or catastrophic invading my day book, would probably do again tomorrow. My favourite way to avoid the inevitable is to click on “Stumble”, an internet search program that leads one to hitherto unknown sites determined by the user’s chosen areas of interest. I’ve spent many happy, unproductive hours collecting more trivia than my brain can store. That morning I “stumbled” upon a writing exercise: Describe a happy moment.

Hmm.  Happy moment.  I’ve enjoyed many happy moments in my life such as falling in love or seeing my babies for the first time.  Oh, and there was that profound moment when I realized, in Sally Fields at the Oscars manner, that God loves me, He really loves me. That was a supremely happy moment, but these examples seemed too obvious.

I searched the cluttered files in my mind and found one labeled, “Remember this.”

Our son and his wife entrusted the care of their two precious little ones to Grampie and me while they took a group of teens to Mexico to build an orphanage. Grampie and I were thrilled to have the grandchildren all to ourselves. We stuck blank plugs into all the electrical outlets –and remembered how hard it is to get those wretched things out when you have to actually plug something in. We locked up the medicine –and noticed there were a lot more little brown bottles in there than there used to be. We erected a child gate at the top of the stairs –and carved a round chunk out of the wall in the process. After stocking up on toys and picture books we were ready to be cuddled and entertained by the most wonderful children in the world.

I regret now putting the mother’s curse on my boy.  The mother’s curse?  That’s the one Erma Bombeck wrote about: May you have children just like you. My boy’s kids also have only two speeds: “high” and “off”, and they acquiesced to “off” mode most reluctantly.

We felt harried and somewhat tense as the little ones dove directly for the things we hadn’t recognized as hazards. Our son and daughter-in-law trusted us with their most valued possessions. That made the babies doubly precious and put us into an exhausting hyper-vigilant state, lest one of them receive a dent. Grampie and I resorted to working in shifts so one of us could take a nap occasionally.

One hot afternoon we took them to the water park.  That water is cold.  Little kids don’t always like the shock of a cold spurt of water catching them unaware.  We were about to try something else when we noticed the little guy standing ankle-deep in a puddle.  He squealed in triumph over his fear of frigid water and plopped his chubby feet up and down. Meanwhile, his sister was collecting water in a pop can for her Grampie’s baptism.

Later as we swathed their goose bumps in sun-warmed towels, a pink swim suited child skipped up to my granddaughter.

“How old are you?”

“Three,” the Princess answered from behind my leg.

“I’m four. Let’s play!”

She pulled our sweet girl by the hand to a grassy area after I gave her permission to go.

I wish I could make friends like that.  I imagined myself going up to a stranger and asking her how old she was.

“Fifty-eight,” she would say.

I would say, “I’m fifty-nine.  Let’s play!”

The girls giggled with glee as they tossed handfuls of clover flowers torn from the lawn into the air. Somehow I resisted the urge to warn them about bees. Instead I stood nearby holding Little Man in my arms.  He rolled his shoulders forward tucking his arms between our bodies and rested his perfect round head on my shoulder. A warm summer breeze enfolded us.  My beloved mountains surrounded the valley like a protective purple fence. On the edge of the park the sound of wind in the swaying trees was like distant applause from approving angels in the grandstands of heaven.

“Take a picture of this,” I told myself. “Take a mental snapshot of this moment. This is happiness. This is joy.”