Sometimes you just decide to be happy — an angel in a dirt hut in Nicaragua taught me that

I was in a deep funk, worried about some family issues that had arisen as I rode the hot highway in the back country of Nicaragua.

Then I saw a strange sight — an American flag in front of a hut. So incongruous I stopped to take a picture. Suddenly, a voice bellowed from within — “Hey, at least ask permission!”

Chagrined, I crossed the muddy field to apologize, to this adobe hut with open walls, a sleeping loft above, and a well-swept dirt floor.

A woman, about 60, beautiful, lying on a hammock inside, greeted me with a radiant smile “Come in! Sit down!” I began apologizing and she laughed “I surprised you didn’t I? I thought you might be going after my land.”

We then had one of the more memorable, wonderful conversations of my life.

Somehow, she sensed I was troubled and launched in: “You’ve got to make every day count! No matter what your problems are. You’ve got to decide that today is going to be a great day!”

“Like today, I woke up with pain in my gut, thinking of my daughter in prison in Managua, wondering whether we should sell our land to pay our debts, and worrying that the venomous snakes that come in the night will bite my 7 year old grand-daughter. But then I reminded myself “Today will be another great day! And so it is-we even had the luck and happiness to have someone like you drop in .”

My insides relaxed, the vice grip of stress in my mind loosened. Beyond the obvious huge differences in our problems — mine were luxe, hers were severe — it was her indomitable attitude, force of joy and love, that lifted me.

Finally, after a couple of hours, I reluctantly had to go. We hugged and then she gave me a final gift, an image thats sustained me through hard times: “Recuerda Mark, ¡tienes que exprimir — exprimir! — el jugo de la vida, las gotas de alegria, todos los dias! “Remember Mark’ and here she pantomimed vigorously wringing a towel in the air, “you have to wring — to wring! — the juice, the drops of joy, out of life every day!”