Joy: such a small, simple word with such a powerful impact. We spent a lot of time this last year searching for kernels of joy in what felt like a sea of loss, understanding all the while the necessity of finding it. “To miss the joy is to miss all,” wrote Robert Louis Stephenson, who was one of my mother’s favorite authors, so to discover that these words were his is joy in itself, and brings many reminders. “Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing.”

Where it resides. I suppose the most natural place to reclaim joy is in the garden where it greets us every morning in all seasons of the year. Most naturally in spring, when in the dismal days of March, the merest glimpse of a daffodil blade shouldering the dirt brings hope of the garden’s resurgence. And in summer, where there are always new flowers to look forward to while we appreciate anew the cool of ancient ferns and pines. And in the fall as we stroll through the cornucopia of foliage, through limbs dangling leaves like jewels, collecting color and warmth for the bleakness to follow. And in winter, with the peaceful delicacy of snowflakes which precede the storm, and in its aftermath, the pristine surf, the sparkling sculptures of shrubs cloaked with snow, the willows with ice. There’s joy in all of this.

Our grandson has returned all sorts of long gone joys to the garden, where the yard is once again reclaimed for playing Tag, Hide-and-Go- Seek, Mother May I, One-Two-Three Red Light! He walks out of the house, into a night filled with fireflies or on the morning of an Indian summer, stops for a moment to absorb everything, and with a depth beyond his years says, “I’m so happy I’m home,” and then with a spirited, “I get to run all over the place!” he’s off. He takes everyone who comes for a visit on a tour of what’s important to him – which trees to climb and the sections of the stonewall to walk on, his sandbox and his tree house, inviting stuffed animals into the gazebo that he’s turned into his veterinary office and inviting company to tea parties beneath the weeping cherry.

There are also flowers he particularly likes. His reasons are different than mine; I look to durability, longevity, compatibility, or the gift of it, flowers from the gardens of friends and family. Our grandson favors those with vibrant colors, as in the fiery, scarlet branches of crocosmia, or size, as in the ten foot towers of sunflowers, or their ability to attract bees and butterflies. Dandelions, bluets and milkweed are favorites. He is fascinated with all of the creatures that venture into the yard — bees, butterflies and dragonflies, deer, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, chipmunks, foxes. They all gladden the yard. As do his toys! Trucks, skooters, soccer balls, wiffle bats, Frisbees — we have to pick them all up when it’s time to mow the grass, and before the first snowfall of the season, but they make the lawn a cheerier place. One can only smile at the sight of a radio flyer.

Joy dwells in these things, in the sandbox extending from the deck, filled with the tools for constructing castles and building roads, in the tree house resting in the crook of the birch tree, where a flag proudly proclaiming his name, his kingdom, is hoisted. These are things Juan built for his grandson; he also builds things that bring me joy. From branches he constructs obelisks for clematis, and arbors for Concord grapes, and fences to protect the vegetables which make me feel like I’m at Sturbridge Village every time I pick a tomato. Wind chimes designed from sea shells, from an assortment of old bells, of old spoons, the keys of a xylophone, metal landscape spikes which produce, surprisingly, the sweetest of sounds, birdhouses and feeders that coax certain birds into the garden. If you provide these and plants that invite winged visitors – milkweed for butterflies, coral bells for hummingbirds, catmint for honey bees, black-eyed Susans for dragonflies, thistle for goldfinches – they will come. Their simple presence, swift flight paused to alight on a petal, gives us joy.

My most prized possession? The swing that Juan salvaged from my father’s garage. I recognized the weathered, old board the moment I saw it, transporting me to all the hours I spent on it as a child. Most important, it reminds me of my father, who repurposed materials for everything — stairs, birdhouses, benches — crafting this swing from a salvaged scrap of lumber and suspending it, with natural hemp rope, from the branches of a sugar maple tree. It has lasted all this while to lift his daughter, his granddaughters, and his great- grandson into the dream world of sunlit leaves.

Joy, above all, lives in the people we love, and lives on in the memories of those we have loved, which come to us sometimes in the form of an object, or a song, or a scent, and always when we need them most.

And at Christmas time, when joy can be found everywhere – in the twinkling magic of the Christmas tree, the scents and the sounds of the season, the warm embrace of friends and family, the exhilaration in the instant darkness turns into a world of blinking lights, and in the peacefulness that candles in the windows evoke. Joy springs from the innocent belief that reindeer pull a sleigh filled with benevolence from the North Pole to the rest of the world, and settles in the ancient belief of the miracle at Bethlehem. The purest joy in our homes found in the faces of children on Christmas morning when they realize Santa has come; and in our town, in the faces of our elders when their neighbors sing carols to them, for another year.

May your holiday be filled with the memories you make and those you’ve saved, and with joy that extends throughout the new year.

Dayna McDermott