"You are happy when you delight in what you have and you are unhappy when you mourn for what you can not have." alanabit

That is probably true but memory itself is such a potent force. Contrary to what I understood Little Hawk to be saying, my experience has been that when I go back and relive a happy moment of then it makes me happy now. And not in a morbid way. The happiness spills over and makes better whatever and wherever I am.

One blazingly happy moment was when I stood in the hospital corridor around the corner from the delivery room where my daughter was giving birth to twins.

A nurse hurries out, a bundle in her arms, and stops in front of 'Grandma'. She pulls back the coverlet and there with a little blue cap on his tiny head is my grandson. His face is wizened and old but alert, even astonished, and his eyes look like Billy Joel.