Gratitude Practice 2020 Day 77: The Bluebird of Happiness

Burke and I have reached the Marie Kondo phase of the 2020 social distancing adventure....okay, I've reached this phase and Burke is kindly going along. We've got an array of plastic bins, a label maker, an industrial size roll of garbage sacks and nothing but time and nervous energy. Watch out junk drawers and base boards... I'm coming for you. I've decided to focus my nights and weekends toward going through the normally avoided knooks and crannies because who has the time or energy for these areas during normal life, right? Go us.

I am not a big collector of knick-knacks. I like to keep things pretty simple. There are however lots of extras to sort and organizing and there are a few small trinkets that have a tender place in my heart and memory. Even before tonights determined purge, I've been thinking about one tiny treasure gifted at such a challenging time of my life. This tiny knick-knack had a big intended purpose then and its just as powerful today.

Shortly after my father died in 1992, I felt my world systematically begin to unravel. As if being a teenager girl is not hard enough, his sudden death blew up our home life and our family in irrecoverable ways. Flooded with grief and anger that would take years to process and understand the simple comings and goings of a normal high school experience quickly took a much different frame. At that very time God's love for me manifested in the shape and form of an elderly woman who lived in our neighborhood who was assigned to support the youth of our small congregation. Dorothy Free was a 70+ year old firecracker who loved me unconditionally, noticed my details, championed my efforts, filled gaps that at the time I did not even know I had and taught me how to not just hold it together but encouraged me to fall apart and find some kind of happiness along the way. We met often in her home which was dripping with every possible dusty knick-knack normally acquired and appreciated by women of her generation. I loved and needed Dorothy and she loved me with a careful and meaningful precision and the few years our paths crossed were absolutely laced with divinity and grace.

I will forever remember the day Dorothy showed up at my house with a small wrapped gift box, giant love filled tears in her twinkly old lady eyes and the warmest most loving hug possible. She gave me the box, hugged me tight and told me this was a token to remind me to search for happiness no matter my circumstances. She was strangely emotional and overflowing with love and concern for the noticeable impact of my current unraveling. After she left, I opened the small box to find a small glass bluebird with a note indicating this was the bluebird of happiness. This was a very Dorothy Free kind of treasure and to be honest my angsty teenage self was not super excited to begin collecting trinkets. BUT...it came from Dorothy and her love for me was real and it's intention resonated so deeply within my broken soul and it was gifted to me with so much love and meaning....that it's been on my bookshelf or nightstand ever since. This happy little glass bird has bounced around the country with me for almost 30 years. I'm sure she would be both delighted and a bit surprised that her little token has done what she had hoped...it reminds me to keep searching for the happiness.

Grateful for the tangible reminder to seek out some happiness and especially when our world gets a little more wobbly with each passing day. Grateful to be reminded that the grief stricken angry beyond words endlessly worried teetering on hopelessness seventeen year old me survived an incredibly dark season so maybe the forty-three year old me can too. Grateful for the chance to teach my Sarah Kate this very same gut wrenching yet life saving practice. Grateful forever for Dorothy Free who showed up and loved me deeply and consistently and accurately and even when I am sure I was very challenging to love. Grateful that hard times eventually pass. Grateful to be reminded this by this silly dusty little knick-knack and that God is aware of us and is counting on us to search for the happiness....even in and especially during a season of systematic unraveling. So, keep searching. Keep hoping. Keep staying home and know that tiny little bluebirds of happiness are eventually coming our way.