The skin wrinkled around his mouth as his lips widened in a grin. He took my hand firmly and shook it with the enthusiasm of a maniac. I smiled back hesitantly, shirking from his twinkling blue eyes. He plonked down on the skeleton of a chair and launched into a story about his daughter and a cat. He chattered so fast I had trouble keeping up, but I could tell it wasn’t a very interesting or particularly uplifting recollection, but when I asked why he was so happy about it, he simply chuckled and said, “She’s alive. I’m alive. She’s happy. Being glad is better than sad!”