Got a happy story?

"Daddy, spin it around," the middle Carnacki girl said.

She sat on the board of a rope swing looped over the thick branch of a large black walnut tree.

I spun the swing until the ropes entwined tighter and tighter. She giggled in anticipation.

"I'm going to die," she laughed.

When I got it as tight as I dared, I let go with a little push.

She spun around like a top, faster and faster until a shoe flew off followed by the other.

It had been a busy and difficult week at work. My boss who loves me like a son has cancer and she just found out the prognosis is not good. Her fear has caused her to lash out at me and others. We don't know what to say to her. And on a selfish note, we're shortstaffed and with the economy the way it is we're not going to get any other people. We're all tired. Bone tired. My evening commute was a crawl and when it did pick up a man in a truck tailgated my back bumper even though the highway was packed there was no where for him to go. Hed passed on the shoulder and crowded in and then weaved in an out of traffic. I had to laugh when I passed him later after he got stuck behind a slower moving vehicle. All that aggressive driving by him for so little gained.

Still, it was a long ride home in my car with too many miles and an air conditioner that seems to have stopped working.

So I didn't know what I was going to write for a happy story and wasn't really in the mood as I drove home to think up one from my memory. As I thought about it on the drive, I figured I'd recycle an old diary. I began the series on a cold wintry night in 2005 shortly after the second inauguration of a man not fit for the office he occupies to try to boost the spirits of myself and others. Since then, others have taken the happy story ball and run with it, most recently sobermom and Eddie C, both of whom have done a fantastic job with it. When Eddie C asked me to fill in tonight, I was pleased too.

But I didn't know what I was going to write.

As soon as I opened the door, my seven year old wanted to go outside and play. I just wanted to collapse on the sofa until dinner, but she gave me the big eyed look and I said yes and the girls and I went outside to the rope swing.

They each took turns, spinning like tops on it, certain that at the speed they spun they were defying death and loving every moment of it.

"I love you," the 4 year old said to her big sister as I told them to hold on to the ropes and each other. "I love you, too," her big sister said before I let go and gave the swing a slight push to set them spinning.

They shrieked with laughter and when it stop they staggered off and fell onto the ground together.

Lucy, the best dog ever, came up and gave them a lick and then lay back down over them as they giggled in the tall green grass.

I said in the first happy story and it's true for tonight as well. There are people in heaven looking down at us at this moment in envy.

That's my happy story for tonight. Your story can be about anything you want it to be.