Happiness

I finished reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" this week and am feeling very grateful for the experience. There were so many little truths, so many real insights into life. I recommend it to everyone. Read it thoughtfully.........and count your blessings.

A few more quotes:

" ' You'll never raise that one,' they told her, 'Her color ain't good. If the good Lord takes her, it will be for the best. What good is a sickly baby in a poor family? There is too many children on this earth already and no room for the weak ones.'
'Don't say that,' Katie held her baby tightly. 'It's not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.' "

"She looked down into the yard. The tree whose leaf umbrellas had curled around, under and over her fire escape had been cut down because the housewives complained that wash on the lines got entangled in its branches. The landlord had sent two men and they had chopped it down.
But the tree hadn't died..it hadn't died.
A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it. Then it had started to grow towards the sky again.
It had lived! And nothing could destroy it."

" 'People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,' thought Francie, 'something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains--a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone--just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.' "

So today I am feeling grateful for the struggles in my life. They have made me strong. And, again today, I choose to be happy. I am so blessed.