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.