Dick Clark was on the television set, but I wasn’t in my living room. It was 2007, hours away from 2008. I was standing at the foot of my father’s hospital bed, looking at him, not quite understanding how fate had brought us here. It was the eighth visit to the hospital or maybe the tenth, or I don’t even know. After ten visits, I think we all lost count.
On this New Year’s Eve, it was my turn to the stay the night. My mom, my sister and I had made a pact that we would never leave my father alone. Every chemo treatment, every scan, every cutting edge treatment, at least one person from our family would keep my father company. So I made a makeshift bed, on the ground, letting my father know that I was there. The room felt thin to me. Â Lying on the floor, looking up at the patchy ceiling, I felt an intense amount of sadness. While writing about it now, I can transport myself there, the puke yellow paint, the smell of old skin and medicine, and the beeping of machines.
The truth is I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling. And I am grateful for that. Until I spent that night, I don’t think I understood what sadness was about. And because of what I carry inside of me now, I understand the meaning of happiness.
Happiness is health. Happiness is waking up in the morning and breathing fresh air. Happiness is the belly laugh of a baby. Happiness is having dinner with your family. Happiness comes in the form of hugs and kisses from your husband. Happiness is writing. Happiness is reading. Happiness is a conversation with an old friend. Happiness is in the present moment. Happiness is the little things in life, whatever they may be for you. Happiness is everything that is now, not what you hope it to be. Happiness is yours.
I know this pendulum can shift at any moment, sadness and happiness at either end. From sadness, though, I understand happiness.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
Without the darkness, we can never fully see or appreciate the sunshine.
Beautiful post. Thanks for sharing it! Glad to have found you thru 5 for 10.
Beautiful, Rudri, I agree that happiness is the present moment, and that sorrow helps us understand that joy can always be a choice.
This makes perfect sense to me — that sadness leads you to a deeper understanding of happiness. Well written post.
Very profound, and so true. I love that you took a sad moment and reflected on the happiness it can reveal. Thank you for sharing this, it really is beautiful. I was going to paste and quote you but I would have had to copy all of the second to last paragraph, so I’ll skip it 🙂
Visiting from momalom; thanks for the comment on my post as well.
Our post are a little too close today. I spent New Years Eve in a hospital room once waiting for my sister to receive a new heart.
Hard to find happiness in those difficult times. But that’s what we have to do. I just don’t know how.
We took shifts in the hospital as well. My husband stood in for me because I was 5 months pregnant. I think it was two month we stayed, waiting. She didn’t make it. It takes your breath away.
What a raw and touching post. So beautifully and simply put.
You’re so right. To understand something fully we must comprehend the opposite as well. The balance puts everything in perspective.
This is so true. I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through with your father, but you’re right. It’s hard to appreciate the good without the bad.
Yes. I agree. Through sadness we appreciate happiness (here through the FiveforTen!) Thank you.
You are so right. I think it’s the bad that makes us appreciate the good and happy times even more.
Knowing sadness does make you appreciate happiness. What a emotional piece this must have been for you to write. Thanks for sharing your story.
Darkness and light. Happiness and sadness. The pendulum never stops moving, does it? The beauty is in learning to accept what it brings.
Beautiful post, and I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for this reminder. I won’t take my health for granted today, or that of my family!
A beautiful post – the tears well up.
You are so right – we can’t have one without the other – that pendulum swings
This is my favorite part: “Happiness is everything that is now, not what you hope it to be. Happiness is yours.”
Indeed, happiness is yours. We just need to see it. Thank you again for your beautiful words!
As you know, I’m travelling this journey, this path to find understanding from my own deep sadness. You are a wise woman to have been able to make the connection, to find it freeing in this way. Only a special kind of person can do that. Your words here are rich and deep, your exploration of this is quite inspiring. Thank you!
Beautiful post.
We don’t fully understand something until we experience the absence of it. A beautiful post and a beautiful sentiment. Life is a pendulum. At every moment, we are either on one side of it or the other. Which means (to take a glass-half-full view) we’re either in it or headed for it.
Thanks for this reminder, and for your kind words on Embrace the Detour today. I’m so glad to have connected and to be connecting again through 5 for 10.
Rudri, I know that fickle shift, too, but I’ve never thought about it in this way. I’m sad for you, but also glad that through loss you’ve gained a better sense of happiness. We passed the last days and nights of my aunt’s life in just this way. Though I still have trouble thinking about it, surrounding her with love did make the passing more peaceful. We lost someone much younger more recently, and for that we weren’t gathered, preparing. It, too, gave me a greater and more real sense of happiness – but I live my worst days in fear of that backswing.
Rudri, this is a raw and heartfelt post. I often keep myself afloat on the really rough days by saying, “at least I’ll appreciate tomorrow that much more because of how bad today is.” It’s sad that it works that way… but it does. It’s why I love living in the NE. The winter makes me appreciate summer. The hot summer helps me appreciate the beautiful snow.
I’m sorry you went through such a rough time but am glad that you now REALLY do understand happiness. Many of us do not.
Happiness “is in the present moment,” “in the little things.” I think this is so true and so simple, yet so very, very easy to overlook and forget. Thank you for the reminder to find happiness in the very place where I am right now. I needed this today.
Yes – I so get the opposite forces. The yin and yang. To understand one, you must first know the other.
“Happiness is the belly laugh of a baby.” – I cannot think of anything that makes me happier than this.
Rudri, I’m so glad this 5/10 series has led me to your blog because you are a beautiful writer. I was so touched by this post. I look forward to reading more of your work.
This is so achingly lovely. And so true. Thank you.
Breathtaking-the sadness, and the beauty in your post. It is so true-the brights are so much brighter after you have experienced utter darkness. I’m sorry you had to feel that pain, but glad you appreciate the happiness you have now.
Beautiful!
This is an absolutely exquisite piece. And something I can identify with on so many many different levels. I really, truly believe that my darkest darks have helped me experience as much !!! and light as I have.
Gorgeous, really!
This is a really beautiful post. I just read someone else’s and they were talking about the Dalhi Lama’s book The Art of Happiness, and one of the main points is that suffering is a gift. I think that through the suffering, big or small, we see the joy and happiness in life. It’s always unfortunate that we have to learn lessons through the hard times, but it makes us all stronger, as it did for you.
So, so true. You can’t really appreciate happiness until you’re experienced deep sadness. It make the happiness that much sweeter.
I have often thought that it is only through the experience of the dark that we are able to see the light. But it is one thing to think it and another to process it as completely as you have here, Rudri. While I am sorry that you had to experience the darkness you did, I am grateful to you for sharing its lessons with us in this beautifully-written piece. Thank you.
I’m so glad I found your blog. We have so much in common — from being lawyer-writer-moms to losing a beloved father. I can very much relate to your take on happiness and it takes, yes, courage to write about it. I know. I wish I could. I look forward to reading more!
Much wisdom and truth in what you say, in what you have lived. Happiness is a relative concept that depends upon its opposite for its very meaning.
In some ways all happiness, and all life is bittersweet—but just as you guys kept your dad company, we don’t have to go through the bitter alone, and the sweet is much sweeter when shared.
Namaste
Happiness is now… Happiness is yours.
I love this conclusion. Thank you for the reminder.
It’s wonderful how you turn a negative into a positive. Sadness makes you appreciate the happiness all the more and to find happiness in the everyday moments. Thanks for the great reminder and another beautiful post.
Just beautiful, Rudri. Beautiful in its heartache and sadness, and in the awesome realization that we need this darkness in order to have the light of happiness. I couldn’t agree more.
Just read from Momalom. Somehow I missed this one. Great perspective.
I can relate as well…and have often wondered how to teach my children to appreciate the happy in their lives without them having to suffer some darkness. Even though that’s how *I* learned to embrace moments, I would sure love to spare them sorrow.
How beautifully put. You brought tears to my eyes and gave me a wonderful reminder to just be in the moment. Your Dad was/is a lucky man.
When my children were still growing in my womb I wrote them letters. One of the things I wished for them was sadness. My husband thinks I’m crazy still for wishing them this. But sadness is necessary for us to experience true happiness. I am sorry that your family had to go through this, CANCER SUCKS. But I am also grateful that you were able to take this away from it. And so so thankful that you shared it with the rest of us.
Congrats on your recognition from momalom! You deserve it!