Good Days and Bad Days

Addison has a book called A Good Day by Kevin Henkes.  As I read this book to her this week, as I have over the last few years, I smiled and felt hope within my heart.  When my thoughts get cluttered with Whys? and Why not’s? I often think of this book’s simple message and the inevitable and intertwined lives we all lead.

And here is how the story is told:  A Good Day by Kevin Henkes.

It was a bad day…

Little yellow bird lost his favorite tail feather.

Little white dog got her leash all tangled up in the fence.

Little orange fox couldn’t find his mother.

And little brown squirrel dropped her nut.

But then…

Little brown squirrel found the biggest nut ever.

Little orange fox turned around, and there was his mother.

Little white dog worked herself free and ran in circles through the dandelions.

And little yellow bird forgot about his feather and flew higher than he ever had before.

And there’s more…

A little girl spotted a perfect yellow feather, picked it up, tucked it behind her ear, and ran to her mother, shouting, “Mama! What a good day!”

It is so hard on the really bad days to feel that there will ever be a really good day.  To feel like any of this has a purpose.  To look past the twisted, torturing hurt and pain.  To comprehend that our worst days may in fact lead us to our best days.

Chris and I analyze and over analyze each decision we have made up to this point and are making as we move forward.  We talk karma and God, choices and decisions, good luck and bad luck.  We try so hard to figure it all out, to learn from the past and move cautiously into the future.  We know that whatever angle we play, whatever spiritual pull we feel and whatever our instincts tell us, this world will keep on spinning and we will be scooped up into the inevitable cycle that can only be described as life. 

 

What this book reminds me is that even when we are stuck, are lost, or have lost something important, these are temporary positions in life.  We take what we are given or accept the choices we have made and move forward.  We understand that our bad days may be making someone else’s good day come true.  We understand that it is not about what is fair and what it is not fair, but yet about the true cycle and movement of life.  Those that walk through a bad day and into the next day are destined to find their good day.  We no longer fight against the bad days.  There will be bad days…but realizing that there also will be good days is what gets us through.  

    

On one of my own bad days, this book made me smile and made me think… our losses may help us fly higher, the tangled twisted feeling we have inside will unwind, what we are looking for might be right in front of us, and that someday….we will find our “biggest nut” ever.  I am sure he or she will be one heck of a cute nut too. ;)