It seems after the last few weeks, after several more not so good weeks, to be worse, not better.
We are now in the Holiday Season, where it is supposed to be better. Ok, seriously!?! Nope, nope, and nope.
Despite what is going on around me I am choosing to look for the good, for the bright, for the joy and the happy. Every, single little bit can find.
While there are certainly a number of people in my life that are relatively good at finding the good in theirs, the one in my life who was most great at getting into this state of mind was my daughter. The one we lost years ago.. She did this so effortlessly. I really miss seeing that.
Even to this day, some twenty plus years later, I am in awe at the way she viewed and reacted to the world around her.
She was so unjaded, with the beautiful ability to fully live in the moment.. something I have never fully grasped.
And while she took great pleasure in most everything around her there were three things she seemed to seek out that never failed to bring out her happy.
These were her people (our families and close friends), animals (horses first, then doggies, then kitties in close succession), and finally people in general. She just loved them.
It seems a strange thing to say of a toddler but making people happy, seeing them smile in turn radiated both peace and joy from this amazing little being.
We, sadly, never made it to Disney World with her, but sometimes I could have sworn a trip to the town’s newer-at-the-time Wal-Mart seemed to be her version of that. It held absolute wonder for her. I’m really not kidding.
She of course liked being wheeled down the toy aisles. But what she really, really liked there were the people. It seemed to be her own personal quest to wring smile after smile out of strangers, young and old alike.
It didn’t matter what someone looked like, or the mood they were in.. It just mattered if they smiled. For a darling toddler batting big eyes, peek-a-boos and blowing ’tisses’ are pretty heavy arsenal, let me tell you… I don’t think we ever left that store without her being pretty triumphant.
It was equally awe-inspiring to watch her with our family’s “hossies”, and we were blessed enough that most of her young cousins seemed to share her love of all things horse. If papa and grandma were there, too, then all the better! And getting to have two of her favorites, horses and family, was pure heaven for her.
She loved petting, jabbering at, and riding (safely with a family member) horses. She was happy to be held close enough to try to bury her face in a warm horse’s neck. Being near them made her face just light up, always.
I may have spoken of this little trip before, but it really sticks in my mind. It was the trip we took a few hours away to pick up a mare for my mom.
We met the seller, a friend of my parents, there at a horse show. Though family was there, my parents were pretty busy with their friend and new addition, and my sister was pretty busy keeping her little ones in check, too.
I was there, myself, with a baby and my toddler, the toddler that couldn’t get enough of horses.
And so I was absolutely mortified that for the first time ever I would have to use the dreaded toddler harness… I was the mom that could do it all! What kind of parent puts their little angel in a harness!?!
Apparently that would be the mamma with the toddler that looks at horses like most kids look in a free range candy shop..
My girl couldn’t get enough of her ‘hossies’ and there were hossies all over the place. She had been walked right into her joy. And dagnabbit if that harness wasn’t the horrible, wretched device that kept her from those beautiful, enticing creatures!
Looking back I think her initial expression upon realizing that this thing was now keeping her from giving those beloved horses her heartfelt pets and tisses, well, that was a WTF expression if ever I have seen one.
This was followed very quickly by crocodile tears, and then heart breaking sobbing, finally melting pitifully into the floor.
And that, right there, is the epitome of the depths of pure love a child has for what brings them sheer joy.
But that joy and happy that that little girl so relentlessly pursued.. the kind the just visibly and deeply radiates from your core outward.. touching those around you… The kind that it catching… that is the happy and the joy I hope to purposefully look for in these next few weeks.
And I sincerely hope for each of you the same, if not more!
So in both the big things and in the little things look closely, be purposeful, and then cherish and embrace those moments!
And PS… there really was plenty of fun on that little trip for my mostly sweet little girl. And she did get to pet and blow tissues (thanks in no small part to some kind and generous owners) to more than one obliging horse. 🙂
Of Loss and Love 