{"id":2345,"date":"2008-09-29T12:40:47","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T16:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifewithhappiness.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2018-10-02T13:36:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T17:36:59","slug":"happiness-rebounds-in-memoriam-kara-w-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theexecutivehappinesscoach.com\/2008\/09\/happiness-rebounds-in-memoriam-kara-w-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Happiness rebounds: In Memoriam, Kara W Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kara<\/a>
Kara W. Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIt was exactly four years ago — 10:10 AM on a Monday morning — that my world got knocked off its axis. That was the moment a police officer came knocking on my door to tell me that my daughter had been in an accident.
\nLater that morning we learned she had died of a cerebral hemorrhage — at age 22, on her way to classes, she died like she’d lived — moving fast, and ahead of schedule.\u00a0 And that was so like her .
\nWatsana Soodsawat was born in Bangkok, Thailand and by the powers that flow thru the Universe grew up to join our family in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, literally on the other side of the globe, when she was eight years old.\u00a0 It was here that Kara Watsana Angela Smith, born with a club foot, grew up to be one of the fastest girls on her soccer teams.\u00a0 It was here that she completed our family as we embraced her.
\nKara was ALWAYS early.\u00a0 She got antsy if we weren’t walking into a building five minutes before an appointment.\u00a0 She is the only child I know who ever got bonus points for turning in projects ahead <\/em>of schedule.\u00a0 And she was always moving fast — running, biking ahead, and once she got a car, with her foot to the floor.\u00a0 It was, in retrospect, as if she needed to fit in everything life offered into a compressed schedule.
\nMaybe, she sensed something.\u00a0 She died too soon.
\nIn the wake of her death, Happiness was not the first word we used to describe our world.\u00a0 But we did have our lives to live, and so we moved on and told stories about Kara to keep her memory alive even as we worked very hard to create our “new normal.”
\nNew Normal became our mantra, our companion, our solution to every obstacle we encountered as we tried to put our lives back together.\u00a0 Saying ‘New Normal’ meant that we accepted that things would never be back to normal, and we had permission to re-create normal in this new world.
\nAfter awhile, we noticed that living the principles of happiness for many years prior<\/em> to Kara’s death had made us strong enough to bounce back.\u00a0 Our practiced resilience enabled us to accept what we could not change and forge on ahead with optimism.
\nThere will always be a hole in my heart.\u00a0 There will always be a face missing in new family photos, and a deep sense of loss for what might have been.\u00a0 Yet, we have our memories to savor, and we have the strength we draw from each other.
\nand we have, once more, Happiness.\u00a0 Not happiness that ignores loss, but happiness that embraces loss —\u00a0 accepts it as part of the complicated mess that life tosses at us — and happiness that is deeper and richer; because we’ve looked into the darkness and we know what is possible when happiness is tested.
\nOurs is stronger today than ever.\u00a0 Happiness, you see, rebounds.
\nIn memoriam, Kara Watsana Angela Smith, b 11-15-82 Chang Mai province, Thailand, d 9-28-08, Akron, Ohio.\u00a0 May she be always happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was exactly four years ago — 10:10 AM on a Monday morning — that my world got knocked off its axis. That was the moment a police officer came knocking on my door to tell me that my daughter had been in an accident. Later that morning we learned she had died of a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[55,56,57],"yoast_head":"\nHappiness rebounds: In Memoriam, Kara W Smith - The Executive Happiness Coach\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theexecutivehappinesscoach.com\/2008\/09\/happiness-rebounds-in-memoriam-kara-w-smith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happiness rebounds: In Memoriam, Kara W Smith - The Executive Happiness Coach\u00ae\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was exactly four years ago — 10:10 AM on a Monday morning — that my world got knocked off its axis. 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