“Are you happy?”
I remember my father asking me this. Every time we met.
I remember asking him, once, why he thought it deserved to come first.
I remember him telling me that it was the only question worth answering.
Everything, he claimed, was secondary. And depended on one’s honest answer to this question.
I am a lot like him.
Not as good. Or as kind. Or as generous. Or as smart. Or as good a father. Or son. Or partner. Or, indeed, human.
But like him in the way only a son can be.
And I know my Camus.
So, I have often thought of asking a question of my own; one that means more or less the same thing, only less (how shall I put it?) Sisyphean. Or perhaps more.
But I was too scared that beginning a conversation with this question might make things awkward off the bat. And it stayed in my mind. Maybe I will start now, now that I am too old to care what anyone thinks. Maybe I will wait a few more years. Who knows?
Be that as it may, here’s what I wish to lead every conversation with, perhaps not from now on, but sooner than I can imagine. See if you have an answer for it:
“What made you want not to kill yourself today?”
