When a person is grateful, it’s difficult to be unhappy
I just returned from a “mystery trip,” hosted by my kids.
Our destination, kept secret until they handed me my boarding pass at the San Francisco airport, was a Mexican villa overlooking the Pacific near Puerto Vallarta.
My two kids, son-in-law Paul, granddaughter Abby and myself, stayed for a week in decadent splendor in a spacious white marble house, complete with a staff of three and a private swimming pool.
My kids had promised me a “mystery trip” to celebrate my 70th birthday a few months back but had to postpone it because of my wife’s illness. When Kathleen passed last month, this seemed a good time for all of us to get away for a while but they did insist on keeping the destination a secret to pay me back for the mystery trips I used to take them on when they were little.
We had the villa to ourselves with our own cook serving up delicious meals, a maid to clean up after us and another staff person to keep us in lemonade and beer. I have no idea what all this cost. (I’m not sure I want to know) although Paul assured me these were off-season rates and a week at a nice hotel would have cost about the same. Hmm! Maybe.
Anyway, to say that the trip was therapeutic for me is to understate the experience. It was not so much the elegant surroundings in which we stayed or the way we were waited on hand and foot. To be honest, I would have been content to stay in a rustic campground as long as I was surrounded by my kids and little Abby.
The luxury in which we spent the week was frosting on the cake, and this frosting was lathered on with love and a desire to comfort Dad in his grief.
I wanted to say to them, “You didn’t need to spend all this money on me,” but I didn’t, because to say so would be to belittle the gift and the love with which it was given. So I just accepted their generosity with all the gratitude my heart could muster, and said “muchas gracias.”
I read somewhere that when a person is grateful, it’s almost impossible for him to be unhappy. I believe that. Anyone who has lived a few years knows only too well how elusive is that thing called happiness. Life doles out the good and bad moments to us.
If we are wise, we will be grateful for the good times when they present themselves and grateful especially to the people who make it possible.
So, this lucky old guy spent a delicious week in a private villa high on a hill overlooking the ocean. I watched the graceful pelicans in flight and a young man on the rocks below casting his line into the sea.
I listened to the music of the waves lapping against the shore and the sound of thunder heralding the approach of a summer storm. A football-field distance away, my eyes feasted on the vision of a school of dolphins breaking the water with playful abandon.
Of course, all this won’t last. Now I have to go figure out how I’m going to spend the rest of my days without my sweetheart and best friend. But that’s later. For now, I hold in my heart the memory of this trip.
I know only that I am grateful for the love that I have received. “Estoy contento.” I am one happy dude.
