Gandhi, MLK, Ireland

I write a note for my daughter’s lunch box. She loves trivia, so I include an obscure fact to the note. Right now, we’re having fun with “This Day In History”.

I looked up this day in history. January 30.

Beheadings.

Wars.

Gandhi was assassinated.

Martin Luther King, Jr’s house was bombed.

Ireland’s Bloody Sunday (a vicious massacre that occurred in 1972).

I said to my husband, “Gosh, this isn’t really that great of a day.”

As I was writing the note, my daughter fell into her dresser (she’s graceful like me). Scrapes and bruises and lots of tears.

“This is such a bad day already,” she said.

I found one positive fact for her note (today is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s birthday…that’s pretty cool), packed her up, got her in the van, and took off for school.

Along the way, driving East, we saw a beautiful, watercolor sunrise.

“God made that painting for us,” my daughter said. “He’s the kind of Dad who’s a good artist.”

Smiles. Oo’s and Ah’s. Little giggles. She got out of the van. I told her to have a good day. She said she would.

The bad day turned. Transformed. Overcame the bad to become something worthy of a seven year old’s wide, loose tooth smile.

In my novel My Mother’s Chamomile, I wrote about a family of funeral directors. They saw people in their worst moments. Their most horrible day. They witnessed distress and agony and grief.

In those horrible days, they’d see mercy. A kind word. A warm hug. A smile. Reminders that the worst of life isn’t all of life.

The bad times hurt. They wound. But they don’t last forever.

The horrible things in history are behind us. We are capable of overcoming them. That’s not to say they should be forgotten. But we can overcome.

We are more than war and hate. Loss and fear.

All that may last a night…sometimes a very long night.

But healing comes. Mercy comes. Smiles and orange-yellow-pink sunrises wake us.

Joy comes in the morning.