The Best Part of my Day - Tuesday

There's a line in Steel Magnolias that has always stuck with me: "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion."

How true that holds for me.

I have always believed that no matter how desperate the situation, a smile, even a fleeting millisecond of a smile, can always be found.

Today was a very hard day. One of those days when you count the hours for it to cease and become the past.

I came home this evening and sat on my sofa going up and down the Comcast grid, looking for something to watch. I must have scrolled through a dozen times - as though, if by sheer will, a fantastic program would be added to the mix.

I hit the On Demand button and searched. TV Shows, Movies, Free Movies...

And that's when I saw The Towering Inferno.

Not familiar with that film? It's a doozy. Made in 1974 it's one of those super-large cast disaster movies that defined that decade, like Airport '77. I love those films.

And then I was hit with a memory.

My parents and I were in Carmel, CA. I was about 5 or 6 years old at the most. My father was at a business dinner and my mom and I snuggled in a great big hotel room bed watching TV. My father returned and brought with him chocolate lace cookies and chocolate-covered strawberries. The Towering Inferno came on and we snacked on the goodies and watched Paul Newman and Steve McQueen fight a massive fire in a California high rise.

I had forgotten that night and suddenly I could taste the sweetness of the perfectly ripened strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. I could see the hotel room in my mind's eye - the enormous bed spread out before me. Of coarse it was probably just a King-sized bed, but I was very small.

I tucked that night into my heart thirty-some years ago and there it sat, a little treasure, waiting for the moment I needed to remember something sweet and innocent.

A smile crossed my face for the first time today, brushing the tears away.

And that was the best part of my Tuesday.

Side note: It's a Blogathon week my friends. Each day for the next 7 my cousin Liz and I will be posting with the topic of "best part of my day". Check out her blog HERE.