A PRIVATE PARTY

                                              

 Many years ago, on a cold New Year’s Eve, my wife and I found ourselves alone at home. No parties to go to and no one coming over. We both sat quietly, watching the tube, and wishing away the last few hours of the outgoing year. It was about ten p.m. and we both had drooping eyelids when I said. “Let’s go outside and have some fun.”

“Are you nuts?” she said, pulling her snuggie around her. “It’s cold out there.”

“I’ll warm it up,” I said. “Trust me on this one.”

So we both bundled up, and walked down the road to where I had a big pile of brush piled up from the summer. I brought along two lawn chairs, two cans of beer and a book of matches. “Yes, my friends, that was the night we burnt the brush pile.”  She was skeptical at first, grumbling at me in her bunny boots and parka; but as the fire grew, and the warmth radiated at us, and the stars winked down on us from an endless cloudless sky, I could see the reflection of the flames in her wet eyes, and the beginning of a smile on her face as she looked at me, and said. “This is better than the New Year’s Eve that you took me to the party at the Radisson.” We both had tears in our eyes. For me, at least, it was a Hallmark moment.

I learned two things that night in the woods. I learned that it didn’t matter where you had a party, it just mattered who was at the party. The simplicity of it all simply added to the ambiance. We sat there and held hands like two teenagers; we talked about how good our life had been for both of us, and how much we truly cared for each other, our family and our friends. Yes, we felt so blessed.

If I told my granddaughters about this New Year’s night, they would just say, “eww grandpa. Seriously, you need to get a life.” That’s what has happened in our society today. We acquaint happiness with momentous events and expensive trips and gifts. I have a friend who sends me a Christmas letter every year, and all of it is about her world travels. There is never a word about her and her husband, who rarely goes with her, or their kids and grandkids. “Just look at me in front of the Taj Mahal,” the captions say. Would I like to go to the Taj Mahal? Yes, if I had my wife to go with me. I traveled a lot with her, but it wasn’t the place that was so special, it was our happiness together, and that is what I will always remember.

My dad used to say, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I have found this to be so true. The other day I read this quote by an unknown writer, “When I was in grade school, they told me to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.”

When I think of the last time somebody made me really happy—I was with her. I don’t remember where it was—but I was with her. You can travel a long ways, and do many things, but true happiness will never come from new experiences. It will come from sharing those experiences with someone you love. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in each of us. Yes—even if it’s burning the brush pile.