"I have now reigned about fifty years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies.  Riches and honors, power and pleasure have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting.  In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to fourteen."  Abd-er-Rahman the Third, of Spain, (around 960 AD)"  This piece has haunted me since I first read it in a Louise Penny novel,The Cruelest Month. Here was a man with everything it would seem and yet he can count only 14 times that for him amounted to "pure and genuine happiness."  I would love to have read about one of those days, just to see what was able to bring him such happiness.I speculate: a moment when a child reached up to be lifted and he did so, perhaps letting the toddler pull on his beard.  Maybe it was his first child or a grandchild and he could see his legacy reflected in that child's deep brown eyes.Perhaps it was a sunset or sunrise, more stunning than ever he had known before and with in it he felt at one with the Divine and the created earth. It's hard to know what would constitute a "pure and genuine" happiness.But as we prepare for a Thanksgiving, I asked myself that question and Jerry and I explored those moments of "pure and genuine happiness" and found they appeared in the moments least expected or perhaps the moment we experienced it surprised us with the intensity of that happiness.
A day sitting on a bale of hay talking with a kind man, a friend of my sister's,  who later became my husband. The full-term, healthy birth of a baby who had been in utero during our airplane accidentHolding a grandchild a month early but with both mom and child being healthy on Christmas EveThe Aurora Borealis bringing us a magenta red sky with black streaks dotted with stars on a cold February morning at our ranch at 2:00am.The day I quit smokingA day Jerry told me that the best present I'd ever given him was that I was "still here."Finding the perfect home for us after nearly 30 years on the ranchSeeing my first book publishedHelping to deliver a babyWatching snow fall on two beloved dogsA day when my brother and his wife Barb, Jerry and I rode the ski lift up and down in July and then had dinner at the 9,000 foot level on Mt. Bachelor, cradled in the Cascade MountainsThe day the doctor said they got all the cancer after Jerry's and later a friend's surgery

I could go on but I know I have more than 14. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful not only for the many joys but more that I have somehow been given the gift of awareness of those moments and also have the gift of memory. Many of those moments involved other people and I am grateful for them.


As you gather with family and friends or perhaps fix a meal by yourself, may you take a moment or two to recall moments of happiness in your own life. If you are struggling now, this may take time but it can be a boost to the present challenges to find even one moment of "Pure and genuine happiness." I hope you name many but if you begin with only one, may you build more in this year ahead.  Thank you all for your parts in my moments of great joy.  Warmly, Jane

My sis-in-law Barb, nephew Clayton, my brother Craig and nephew Cohlman