The 92 year old, petite, well-poised lady was fully dressed each morning by 8 a.m., with her hair fashionably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind. Today was a big day in her life, the day she was moving to a nursing home, for her husband of nearly 70 years had recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home,she smiled sweetly when told her room was finally ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, a male nurse provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated emphatically. The male nurse replied “But Mrs. Jones, you haven’t even seen it yet.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged…it’s how I arrange my mind. I’ve already decided to love it…It’s a decision I make each morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with parts of my body that no longer work or I can get out of bed and be thankful to God for the ones that do. Each day is a gift from the Lord, and as long as my eyes are open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I have storied away just for a day like this in my life.”

Old age you see is like a bank account…you withdraw from it what you’ve put in. So my advice to you during this holiday season would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories now. You’ll need them later.