Oh Happy Day!

Here comes the sun!

Oh Happy Day! Oh Happy Day!

There are so many reasons to be sad...
Andy and I have seen our fair share of them, maybe more than our fair share.
But we have seen others with so much more. It makes our troubles pale in comparison.

I am sure all of you have suffered troubles that have overwhelmed you at times. And when you look back you wonder "How did we ever get through that?"

Andy and I have thought that on many occasions.
Love, I think helps, sometimes family, and friends.
Always God. at least for me.

But the more I look back the thing that sustained us the most was a decision to be happy. Oh yeah, some days it was hard. But the more we smiled and laughed it got easier and easier. We could have walked around crying in our pretzels. But what good would that do?

I don't mean that you can't ever be sad. Or talk about your troubles and allow yourself some comfort. We all need that. And I hope we all give that comfort when needed.

But at some point you have to make a choice to be miserable or to smile. Life is hard. And it won't get any easier. I have actually had people say what we have gone through with Sara couldn't be so bad because we are always happy. Well, believe me we cry. But, we still choose to smile in the end. Not to show off or to make a point.

No! We do it for each other, for Sara, for Chandra and James. Because we want them to choose to be happy too.

Last week I was in the city and it was cloudy and rainy. I was going past Mount Hope cemetery so I went to see my Grandpa and Grandma Benoit's grave, and I couldn't help it...I cried. For how much I missed them, their love and hugs and comfort.
But then I decided I better smile, because they would have told me to do that. So many times when they were alive they told us not to be too sad when they died. To have a party when they were gone and to remember how happy they were to have lived. I did not get that at all when I was younger. But I could hear them in my head and see their smiling faces.
So I smiled through my tears and ... the sun came out! I am not kidding!

I get it now. It's about choosing to be happy to have lived and loved. To embrace life for all it has to offer good or bad.

All I could think was, Oh happy day!

It played in my head, over and over as I touched their stone for the last time that day, and walked away. All the way back to the car. And all the rest of that day.

The choice is yours. Choose....

I have.

Oh Happy Day! Oh Happy Day!

Shirley and Al Benoit - My Grandparents