After losing my child and realizing that I have suffered what I believe is the ultimate sadness, I have decided that the only way to survive and move forward one very small step at a time is by trying to achieve some sort of happiness.

With that declaration comes many conflicting emotions of guilt, confusion, torment and realizations of impossibility. But if I don’t at least try, then there is no purpose in my attempting to reach the ultimate goal, which is to someday join my son in the paradise I only know to be Heaven.

So the question becomes, how do I define happiness? I am certainly not the first person to ask myself this question and there are Harvard educated professors who research and study the topic to a degree my mind will never comprehend.

I have recently been watching episodes of Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday which have triggered my thinking on how the definition of happiness fits into my lifestyle, my healing and my journey.

Today, for me, as a grieving mother trying to navigate a new normal, I define happiness as looking forward to waking up every day rather than looking forward to going to sleep at night.