Happiness Walks

Happiness walks with the ones who aren’t afraid to be themselves.

Image by Annelise Lords

Theresa knocks on the iron gate, glancing up at the high walls and then trying to peek through the tiny slot between the mailbox and the iron grill, wondering why she has to make the walls so high. The squeak of the gate alerts her, and it opens. A tall Indian-looking snow-haired female with kind light brown eyes and a happy face is adorned in a pair of comfortable grey slacks and a warm pink T-shirt, hidden behind a red and blue checker apron.

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A garden fork in her right hand, covered by long yellow gloves, greets her. “Miss Theresa, Jelani’s mom. Mrs. Joy King.”

“I’m glad to meet you finally. Come in,” she invites.

Stepping in, Theresa glanced around and was swept off her feet. Beautiful multi-colored blooming flowers of different shapes and sizes and a few fruit trees on both sides protected a comfortable-looking picturesque cottage with bay windows.

More lovely flowers are on each side, followed by stone cobbles on the walkway leading towards the back. Happiness Way was on one of the signs to the right, and another read Happiness Street to the left.

“Sorry, but I was doing some gardening,” she apologizes, walking towards Happiness Street. Theresa follows in wonder; a few yards ahead, a tiny pond at the end at the back of the house.

Several concrete benches faced each other, with a heart-shaped table between them. Happiness Way ends in a play area with slides and swings shadowed by a giant oak tree.

Birds sang, and squirrels stood on their hind legs, enjoying acorns. Theresa was thrown back into her childhood as joyous memories seeped into her thoughts.

Mrs. King compliments, “Your daughter is a talented and gifted artist.”

She pulls her back into reality.

“See that picture over there,” she points to a picture on the wall in front of the slides and swings. It was of a flower growing out of a rock.

Image by Annelise Lords

“She painted it. She said, ‘Plants are not afraid to fight for life and be themselves, so why do humans do it.’ Those words are written under the flower she painted.”

Theresa’s eyes popped, and she said, “Thank you for helping her. She stopped painting four years ago after her father died. I tried everything to get her to move on. The therapist says getting her to start painting again would be a sign of her healing. Thank you for allowing her to come here to pain. We were warned the first day we moved into the neighborhood to avoid this house.”

Mrs. King smiled and said, “You are the first adult, besides my children, to come here in ten years.”

“They said you were weird and don’t live in our world.”

Still smiling, Mrs. King asks, “What do you see when you look at me and around you?”

Rotating her head to see more of heaven, Theresa says, “I see a beautiful heart and soul who have managed to create happiness in a world ravaged by cruelty and greed. Can I stay here?” she asks quickly.

Mrs. King laughs, leading her to another of her daughter’s paintings of children and animals playing. Then she instructs, “Read the words written under her name.”

Theresa’s eye widens as she reads, “Happiness walks with children and animals because they don’t know how to be anyone but themselves.”

“Your 14-year-old daughter wrote those words. She wants a world where everyone can be themselves. She said that Genius Turner said, “The number of true individuals who changed the world pales in comparison with the number of people who the world changed. — not being yourself is the worst kind of self-disrespect.”

Tears flooded Theresa’s eyes, and Mrs. King continues, “Happiness walks with the ones who are never afraid to be themselves. The ones who change our world. The ones who add happiness to our world. They call us weird.”

If you know yourself, then no one can tell you who you are. If you love yourself, then the words of others shouldn’t change who you are. Annelise Lords

Happiness walks with those who aren’t afraid to be themselves. Mocked or pressured, they stay true to themselves, and happiness follows them in every direction they go.

I am one of them. Are you?