THEN WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

 

“I found it!” She said in her small voice.

“What did I find missing!”

"Happiness."

It's such an easy word to come out of your mouth, but how lacking it is! Then what is happiness?

x

“I wish instead of all this, I had my grandchildren around me who warm my heart and children whose path I look forward to,” but they are all far away, she sighed. When she was younger, she used to go to America to see her children once a year. Of course, the road is  very long for me now. She thought, "Let them come here to see me now, I'm an old woman." Sometimes they don’t even talk on the phone like they used to. If we aren’t together, there is no longer a topic for us to talk about. All repetitive and meaningless questions and answers… “How are you, are you ok? I am good. “ The posts do not go further than 'How are you?'

If someone in his twenties asked her what she feared most, the answer would probably be being alone.

How strange!

She had been alone ever since her husband’s sudden death. Hasan's presence would soften her and make her more hopeful about life. The deceased would make jokes and make Leyla laugh by doing whatever he could.

From time to time, images from the past would come to her mind. The bathroom of the house they rented was quite cold. That's why everything had to be done quickly in the winter. The bath should be finished quickly. He would quickly apply the soap and pour boiling water on the children. Boiled water boiling on the stove for an hour. The little one would have fun, but the big grumpy one would definitely find something to complain about. After taking a bath, they would curl up next to the warm stove in the living room, where they all spent time together in the winter. “There was a lot of work, but there was joy,” she thought.

So what has changed since those days? Why is she feeling restless and sad?

At that time, their hands were usually tight. Hasan and children would dream when they slept.

"If we had a house like this, with a living room with big windows, sun exposure, and a garden, even if it was small..."

Not so much within four walls, they used to imagine that they were taking the children and going on vacation with the money they borrowed from a friend of theirs.Even the thought of it made her happy. However, she lives in a huge apartment facing the sea, but she isnot in a mood to see the view, “let’s enjoy it alone!”,She whispered.

She always loved money. "One lives to become something,"she  used to quote, and that's how they educated their children. They sent them abroad. For a while, they even had the opportunity to show off to their neighbors and relatives for the schools they attended with scholarships. This was when Zeki had just graduated from engineering faculty, he hadn't been there yet, but what did they say? What! He had a secret contempt for people who grew up in crowded families with less opportunities.

Life has passed, gone. 

So what could we have done better, Hasan? Where were we wrong?

We made sacrifices while raising our children. I will never forget one day, when Hasan was returning from school, his car ran out of gas and was stranded on the road. He didn't have any money, he was ashamed and called me without anyone noticing. 

That's how it happened, they both became graduate engineers. Their majors are Construction and Chemistry. They graduated from school with honors. It's been a long time since they left, but no one has come back around. The prices paid and the sacrifices made were forgotten. The parents remained as an image on  the end of the line of the phone.

She said that happiness is not about your position, nor about the money you earn, nor about your profession that you consider superior...

Happiness is the difference between what you expect from life and what you get.

How wrong people are. The values s​​he built on his whole life seem so empty after twenty years. So this isn't the real. Otherwise, her heart would be satisfied and content, right?

Now, if she had to give one piece of advice to young people, it would be, "Life should not be based on what others say." "I lived not to be truly happy, to truly share, to meet needs, to understand, and I spent my time on this..." she said.

What she used to say is “HAPPINESS is the name of the thing you find only if you pay a pricefor the right values and lead your expectations according to it.”