Amid woes, a wonderful world

The Boston Herald

The TV is on and the 6 o'clock news is all bad. Someone was stabbed. Someone was shot. Someone brought a gun to school. Someone left a 2-year-old on a bus. More U.S. soldiers have been killed and terrorists are everywhere.

``It's a horrible world,'' I tell my daughter.

``Not in this room,'' she says, her 10-month-old sitting on her lap clapping her hands and smiling. I am taken aback by her words. I know they're true. Life isn't horrible here. But I forgot to notice. I forgot about staying in the present and living in the now, living the life that is right in front of me.

Lucy is smiling and three-week-old Adam is sleeping and both my daughters are in my house and the sun is shining and the birds are singing and it's spring, not winter, finally. And life, for right now anyway, my small, very blessed life is good, not bad.

We are all given this, aren't we? Sudden moments of joy when what is eclipses all that was and all that will be. When what is is enough. And I almost missed it. I was looking at the TV instead of focusing on Lucy, reaching for her mother, holding her mother's face in her hands. Instead of looking at Adam, asleep in his mother's arms.

My friend's daughter is going to a prom in two weeks. She's been shopping for a dress, shopping and shopping. She found one she liked and one her mother liked, bought them both, brought them home, tried them on and asked family and friends, ``Which should I keep?'' then decided she liked neither and is going shopping again. Her world right now is a prom dress. It's all she talks about. Most days she worries about war, sickness, death and grades and ``What if something happens to?'' and there's a long list here. But not now. Now she is in the present, focused on taffeta and lace. As she should be. As she deserves to be at 16.

A mother dresses her daughter for her First Holy Communion. A 15-year-old goes on her first date. Young parents sit on a wooden bench and watch their new Little Leaguer play his first game. A couple gets engaged. A boy is graduating from high school. A girl is graduating from college. Someone has a new apartment. Someone is getting married. People are having babies and celebrations and in all of these moments, there is joy. It doesn't last. But it's there.

From my office window, I see two squirrels chase each other around the lawn. Squirrels seem so happy, don't they? They dart. They stop. They stand on their hind legs, as still as rock. Then, on your mark, get set, go, they start all over again. There are always dead squirrels on the street. But squirrels don't seem afraid of the street. They don't huddle close to a house or confine their acrobats to trees. They play. They chase each other. They live. They die. But the death part doesn't seem to hang over their living.

It does with us. Nothing is certain. Nothing is safe. Bullets fly. Bombs explode. People suffer and die. But in between these things, there are times when everything is right, when everything is perfect. These times are fleeting. They come as quickly as they go. But they're real.

Sometimes the stars are aligned. Sometimes everything is perfect. We gaze at the stars with wonder but we miss the brilliance of things close up. Sometimes it takes someone else to point out that life is not horrible. Sometimes it takes a daughter holding her daughter to say turn off the TV and look around and enjoy the moment and all that we have.