It would take a while to write the entire story – since mid-November, so that’s over 2 months.  And anyway, like all my stories, there’s not much plot to hang the words on.  I can just as easily tell you:  happiness remembered me, and came to find me for reasons known only to her.  It’s true some small things happened – some I can tell, some I can’t – to complete the circuitry of frayed wires and blown fuses that normally conduct the flow between my heart and its defenses.  But those events seem more like excuses than causes, more like accidental blessings than chosen prayers.

I’ll steal from C.S. Lewis and say I was surprised by this tender seedling of joy, fed by an effortless light that glowed steadily through the little actions in my day.  Indeed, unlooked for delight was its quintessence – nothing quite as expected, nothing planned, nothing working out like I thought.

And I was surprised to find the name of this feeling, a clear refrain singing along disused pathways, intact and unambiguous.   Not something else.  Close to love, certainly – but not merely a flash of kindness or even deep regard.

Happy, yes.  Happy then, happy now, happy still.  Happy, remember.