Happiness

On my way home, I stopped into the corner store to pick up a soft drink. As I stepped off the curb, my left foot landed in a ginormous puddle of water. I began cursing my luck and got all grumpy with the world. Not 30 feet later, I noticed a car by the side of the road, parked at an odd angle and still running.

I looked up, and noticed a woman opening the gate to a nearby house. And then, out of nowhere, this child (he was maybe four years old) screams, screams out “Hi Mommy!” Something in the sound of his voice was just fantastic to hear. He shrieked in all definitions of the word, but it was the way in which he shrieked. When he hit the “i” in “Hi,” it was as if the entire range of the human voice could not adequately describe his happiness. The absolute joy he felt when seeing his mother was such that it could not possibly be contained, so causing his voice to break.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve heard such happiness, vocalized.

As I walked by, I couldn’t see the mother (who had scooped up her son). But I got to see the kid’s beaming face.

The rest of the way home, I didn’t even think twice about my stupid, wet foot.