It’s said that when we die our entire life flashes before our eyes. If so, I like to believe that some of our most profound, meaningful, and loving experiences will take the time to play themselves out once more before we fully pass. Which memories will they be? Which memories will we choose to remain with, even if for just a fraction of a second longer?

A few weeks I ago I was searching for such a memory. Frustrated and unable to fall asleep I thought it would help if I could think of a moment from my life where I was truly happy and at peace, a moment of real joy, beauty, and bliss. I wanted to locate that moment and focus on it in the hope that it would cozy me to sleep.

I roamed the recesses of my mind and memory reliving those moments that left a great impression; many profound memories came to mind: memories of first kisses, and first loves; moments with nature, floating on my back down a river, shooting stars, the blue hole in the Red Sea; moments of travel, the Great Pyramid, Petra, Paris; moments with family and friends, cooking and baking with my grandma as a boy, seeing everyone at the airport when I got back from Iraq. All of these have a place in my heart. But in this particular moment there was one memory I settled on.

It is a memory involving my niece: When she was less than a year old she was staying the night at my parent’s house where I was living at the time. It was morning and she was still sleeping up in her crib. I decided to go up to check on her. I slowly opened the door and walked in. I was perfectly quiet and made absolutely no sound. Once in the room I noticed she was still sleeping, curled up into the corner of the crib on her belly the way she always slept. I did not want to wake her and so I just stood there watching her, enjoying the solemnity of the moment. I stood for about thirty seconds perfectly still and quiet before she suddenly and randomly woke up off her belly and quickly looked behind her. She saw me and instantly smiled. It was that moment seeing her smile that stuck with me. That smile of hers shot through me like arrows. That was the memory I was looking for.

I remembered that I brought this same memory up when I was at the monastery of Plum Village in France. During group meditation there was a discussion on happiness; anyone wishing to speak on the topic was invited to do so. Someone asked what lasting happiness was. I said that I did not know, if I knew I imagine I would not have been there. But, I said, there was a moment involving my niece, and I relayed to them the same story I just mentioned. I told them I am not sure what lasting happiness is but I imagine it to be something like the smile on my niece’s face when she looked back at me; something like that.

Memories are a vast realm. I often wonder if such memories accompany us on our journey into the great void? Are such moments grounded in a reality that transcends the confines of time? I hope so. It feels so.