are you ok, mom. mom are you ok. i had this picture and i was going to write about mom. then i saw my sister's post asking if it's sad to not think of happiness and i recalled long ago asking mom if she was happy and she said she didn't think of happiness. i think she walled herself in with my stepdad. i think she was walled in as a kid when she hid in the hall closet from a raging drunk father. then got pregnant with my dad. walled off. so i felt sad for her when she said she didn't think of happiness. and i felt my own sadness in my experience of living with her sadness and the sadness of the human world. her answer also implied she didn't feel sad which i know is not true. sadness is true, and if we shut down sadness we shut down joy. the crucial thing is to feel, and to keep feeling through the world and keeping asking the question and keep answering again and again.