Everyone has them – those days where everything seems to go wrong.

Daniel Powter lamented his in his catchy 2006 chart-topping one-hit-wonder “Bad Day”.

Alexander had one in the classic children’s book published in 1972 by Judith Viorst, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”. My kids loved hearing about Alexander and knowing that they weren’t the only ones who suffered such indignities.

Sometimes the reasons for bad days are hard to pin down. You’re just in a bad mood. You feel off. Little things seem to conspire to add up to a day you’d rather leave in the past.

Other times bad days are caused by bad things that happen in our lives. There’s no escaping this; nobody skates through life untouched by loss, injury, illness and injustice of some kind. These bad days can stretch into bad weeks or months, and we can find ourselves desperately searching for something – anything! – to cast a ray of light into the darkness we’re trudging through at those times.

I buried my sister last weekend. She’d been ill all summer, and our hopes for recovery were dashed. Talk about a bad day! It’s one of the stretchy ones, too, that I know will take months to heal.

Yet there have been many rays of light in this journey.  

Things directly related to my sister, such as finding an old letter from her mailed to me in our college days, or hearing one of her songs on YouTube (She was the fiddler in an Irish band, The Crossing);  to receiving a lovely card or bouquet of flowers letting me know friends are keeping me in their prayers during this time; to an evening spent with my other sisters talking, laughing and crying about Jennifer; to holding my brother’s brand new baby, born on the day we held Jennifer’s funeral – what a full circle that made!

Things not related to her at all that nevertheless lift me up, such as a random smile given to me in the parking lot of Family Dollar this morning by a stranger, and seeing two beautiful labs sitting in the cab of a pick-up as if they had just driven in and were waiting for a friend inside the store; a sunbow (like a rainbow, but there’s no rain, and it’s kind of blocky instead of arched) in the evening sky; a late dandelion in the grass; a favorite song that comes on the radio at just the right time; a little piece of good news; an unexpected phone call from a far-away friend or family member just because they thought of me; looking forward to something special I know is coming in the future; an indulgence, such as ice cream or chocolate or an expensive coffee that didn’t come out of a plastic pod; the perfect sermon in church that just seems to be addressed right at me, giving me hope and comfort.

All these things keep me going, adding little pops of gladness to my days, and as a natural optimist, I know soon enough I’ll be generally content once again.

So yeah, I’ve had a bad day, and I know you have, too. And maybe the lady in the Family Dollar parking lot who smiled at me with no idea that she was gifting me with one of those little pops of gladness was having a bad day, too, and my return smile gladdened her in return.

You never know. So when you’re feeling blue, remember the Shirelle’s 1961 hit, “Mama Said”.

“Mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this my mama said.”

I hear you, Mom. You weren’t wrong!