Life happens, begins a popular commercial.

And indeed, it does.

For some, life is happening too intensely, too gravelly to travel the road unaided.

That’s me. I am leaning on all of my resources as I pick my way along this particular and oftentimes difficult road.

But it is not without it’s laughter, too. Just the other night as I was struggling with something simple, my hubby got tickled about my attempt and began chuckling, and when I asked him what was so funny, he burst out laughing. That man laughed until tears of mirth appeared.

I do not remember what made him laugh now, but I think it was something silly.

Isn’t that the way life is?

We go through the motions day in and day out, like an automatic transmission. Shift, idle, accelerate, shift…and so on. But those moments when we see something lovely and say ah…or those moments when we hear something sad and say oh. That’s the pause of the motion in life. Those times need to be MEMORIZED.

I am sort of sad that I didn’t memorize the moment that my husband laughed so giddily. I would like to be able to pull it out and remember it often. But just knowing that he had a moment of laughter in the midst of so much oh oh oh…it’s enough.

When we hear about the trials of life, the bad news, the sad news, we should pull out the times of our lives that were happy and remember them.  I have told a semi-conscious patient all about the entire time we knew each other. I pulled out the memories of all the fun times and recited them to him. He likely never heard a word, but it was very cathartic to me. He was on hospice, and sometimes, when we know the end is nearing, we need to relive some of our happy times. The patient and the one who can be the voice of the scrapbook.

That’s what it feels like, that retelling of the scraps of our lives.

It’s like you are turning pages of a photo album, pointing at the pictures and saying, oh I remember that day! It was hot and we went to the fair. I ate so much I thought I would be sick on that ride we went on. Do you remember?

But some of us don’t pull those memories out and peruse them for fear of opening old wounds. They feel like it is better to forget them, leave them behind a mental door.

My thought on that is: Better to open those doors wide open and let the sun pour into them, illuminating and lightening the dark areas. Open those wounds and let them bleed for awhile. It increases the healing. Once you see the scab forming over it, you can move on. Nothing left to worry about.