My Happiest Day

i know you’re supposed to say that your happiest day was your wedding day or when you gave birth to or adopted a child, but my happiest day came at age 70, and i just now realized that i had never written about it before, so here i go.

My daghter, Rachel, and her partner, the great jazz historian Ben Youmg, were visiting us that weekend and she had, to my delight, asked me to do the loop hike with her on Bear Mountain. i hadn’t been hiking in a long, long time. Ben would be presenting a jazz group that would be performing that afternoon at a venue called the Fullerton Mansion, just several blocks from our home, and my husband, Tim, would be helping him prepare for the show, so it would be just Rachel and me on the hike, as in Olden Times.

The Bear Mountain Loop is a very hard hike (when you’ve just turned 70 and haven’t exercised in a long while), but the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference had recently rebuilt it with hundreds of stone steps, and i was eager to see what it was like now, and it was a perfectly glorious fall day, and i was so happy to be hiking with Rachel that i was practically giddy.

As we started up the mountain, i soon became alarmed at how out of shape i was, but Rachel seemed to not mind having to wait for me many times as a stopped to catch my breath. These stops grew more and more frequent as we neared the top, and finally the hike stopped being fun for me i really worried that i might be having a heart attack. i started wondering if there was cellphone service up there, if Rachel had to call for an airlift for me. And then i thought, “Well, i’m 70; i’m having a great hike with my daughter on a beautiful day in one of the most beautiful places on earth. There couldn’t be a better time and place for me to die.”

But i guess G-d didn’t want me to go yet. Rachel was a complete angel, joining me in sitting on the trail and drinking water with me each time i stopped, never getting back up before i did, breaking out the snacks and just generally seeming like time was not an issue. i kept apologizing and she would always say, “No problem! Look at these views! It’s not a race! Take your time!”

The last time i had to stop, she said, “Mom, look at those girls over there!” (There was a gaggle of teens, some in flip-flops, sitting on rocks at a viewpoint, and drinking from their water bottles, and they did look pretty beat.) “They’ve stopped as much as we have, and they’re five times younger than you!” And that encouraged me to climb another 50 yards or so before — miracle! — we reached Seven Lakes Drive, a paved road that i knew from previous hikes there, was very near the top. Finally i felt my heart returning to normal, and i was able to laugh again, and the world was perfect.

Perkins Memorial Tower (the peak of Bear Mountain) was open that day (it isn’t always) and we climbed it too, reading the historical info beneath all the photos on the walls of its spiral staircase. Then we walked the grounds outside the tower, enjoying the views with dozens of other people, 90% of whom had DRIVEN there, because they aren’t AWESOME HIKERS, like me and Rache!

As we sat and ate our snacks and tried not to get stung by the bees up there (i’d also bought a Coke at the soda machine outside the tower), we saw something cool — other than the Hudson River and West Point and the Hudson ighlands and the skyline of New York City, i mean. A young man on a ledge a little lower than the one we were on, fell to one knee and proposed to his girlfriend, and she cried and nodded and a whole crowd — all of us — cheeered and hooted and clapped. What a great place to propose!

Back in Newburgh, i was looking forward to the “jazz concert” that Ben was sponsoring at the Fullerton Mansion. Instead, it turned out to be a SURPRISE 70th b-day party for me! Tim had organized (and paid for) the whole thing. My brothers and sister and their spouses (from Florida and Massachusetts) were there, as well as my friends, and there was a gorgeous cake with a bird-of-paradise painted in frosting atop it, and guess what? Ben (who called me “CoWo,” for “Councilwoman,” because i then was a Newbuergh City Council member) indeed had a group of jazz musicians playing for us the whole time!

But that wasn’t even the best part of my day. The best part was this: On our way down the mountain, which is way easier and far less steep than the ascent, i said, “Wow, Rache, that was scary for me back there, on our way up. Thanks for saving my life.” And she said, “Thanks for giving me mine.”

If anyone reading this could ever imagine a happier day, do let me know.

And this, Believe it or not, wasn’t even the best part!