Sounding joy: Sunshine

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.

But the sunshine never really goes away, does it? It may appear that way but sometimes it’s simply covered or obstructed from view. Even on the grayest and cloudiest of days, when the sunshine seems to have disappeared, it’s still there, waiting patiently behind the clouds. 

And when the sun is behind a cloud and you’re searching for that sunshine, you don’t always have to find it in the sky. Sometimes it’s right in front of you. 

Just like during the darker or more challenging times in our lives when joy, happiness, hope – all of the things we equate with sunshine – seem so far away, they’re still there, waiting for the wind to pick up, the clouds to move just the slightest bit, and the sunshine to peek through once again, or for something especially remarkable to carry us through those cloudy days and emerge above the cloud cover to a horizon of sparkling sunlight. 

Our sunshine doesn’t have to be just one thing. It can be two loving and snuggly rescue dogs, the tiny voices of grandkids yelling “Nani!” and sharing their sticky and sweet kisses, time spent with your sons, and your bonus added daughters, traditions made together, phone calls with family and friends, laughs shared, trips taken, memories made. Sunshine comes in so many forms. 

This Advent season I am grateful for the sunshines that warm my life, even on the chilliest and darkest of winter days.

Kelly Anderson lives in Davenport, Iowa with her rescue pups, Peter and Paul. She is mom to Tom (Jessica) and Drew (Elizabeth) Taylor. She is overjoyed to be the Nani of Avery, Theodore, and Callahan Taylor.