A Happy Moment

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Allan K. Chalmer

We'd gotten up early, enjoyed our coffee on the porch and headed to the garden center. It was a glorious holiday weekend and we had a lot of planting to do. Despite the small fortune the previous owners had spent on building the country home, they'd completed surprisingly little landscaping. Always the fiscal conservative, he'd insisted upon doing the landscaping himself. I was to be the landscape architect and he'd be my assistant. Fortunately, we had simple taste. We much preferred meadows full of wildflowers to perfectly manicured lawns.

"Pick out whatever you want," he'd said with a big smile as we walked into our new favorite nursery. It was only minutes from our house and full of big, beautiful flower baskets and shrubs. He knew that I loved flowers and would rather shop at the nursery than the department store any day. He grabbed a little red wagon as I began to wonder the rows of plants. As he neared, I smiled and said, "We're definitely going to need another wagon."

Later, as he worked in the garden and I watered the flower baskets he'd hung on the porch, I paused for a moment to watch him. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze. He was listening to the game on the radio and planting the tomatoes his father had given him as a new garden gift. He was utterly happy, and, in that moment, so was I.

The Delusion of Happiness

"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."
- Christian Nevel Bovee

"Don't you wish God would give you a little forwarding before he changes things up on you?" she said with a half-hearted laugh as she attempted to sort through the piles of paperwork that had accumulated during her absence. "You should suggest that to him," I replied dryly. If he'd listen to anyone, he'd listen to her. Despite the insurmountable obstacles that lay ahead of her, she'd returned to work as upbeat and positive as ever. "We've done all we can to slow the progression," she said, "It's in God's hands now." I admired her calm, blind faith. I'd always lacked faith.

Though his faith was not in God, he had a similar strength. He had faith in himself, us and the the natural order of things. He never feared illness or death. It would certainly come, though not anytime soon, and when it did it would be managed. Fortunately, he'd never been touched or tainted by tragedy. If he had, his perspective would necessarily have been different.

I, on the other hand, suffered an immobilizing fear of illness and death. Though I often expressed it in a comical way, it was a constant, crushing fear. Disapproving of our Prozac nation, I'd resisted prescriptive assistance and turned instead to vodka and books. They eased the obsessive thoughts and checking that plagued my every waking moment, and helped me through the anxious, sleepless nights. Though he understood and indulged me during the days, I'd suffered the endless nights alone. I'd forced myself to stay awake night after night, allowing only brief naps on the sofa, reasoning that if I didn't go to sleep then tomorrow couldn't be any worse than today... and I'd survived today.

As I listened to her retrieve her voice messages, I decided I'd rather not be forewarned. Despite all evidence to the contrary, because of him, I still believed that one day I might be happy. Why destroy the delusion?