Hey Pandas, What Is One Childhood Memory That Always Makes You Happy? (Closed)

Hearing my mom singing. She was happy back then.

For me one childhood memory that always makes me happy was for my 12th birthday I got a kitten and I named him Tokyo and he is the reason I started volunteering at the shelter we got him from. He is currently 3 years old and living his best life.

Only one. Playing army men with my big brother when I was four and he was six. It's so simple, but it's the one memory that can make me smile, and I'm thankful for it.

Birds. My grandparents were living in a house with a courtyard and a big garden, and always raised hens and ducks. The small, puffy chicken and ducklings were an absolute bliss. I'd save and bring home all wounded sparrows, pigeons, blue tits and crows - much to my grandma's exasperation.

My mom would threaten me that she'd send me to a chicken farm to take care of chicken - not knowing this was what I secretly wished for :))

Tooling around Okauchee Lake in Wisconsin on my grandpa's pontoon boat. The water was not very deep anywhere in this lake, so the water in the summer was always quite comfortable. We would cruise on the glimmering surface, enjoying the sights, sounds, and sensations of summer, eating bologna and cheese sandwiches, drinking Mountain Dew out of green glass bottles which magically appeared from the cooler hidden beneath the captain's chair, dropping anchor here and there to jump off and swim around. After a day of this delight, we would all pile into my grandparent's enormous '85 Ford Crown Victoria LTD Country Squire, and my grandpa would maneuver us at racecar speeds to the Kiltie Drive-In for frozen custard in waffle cones. It was ILL!

All the cats I've had! They gave me a lot of affection and kept me company.

Christmas Eve is probably my favorite. We'd have snack foods and play games with all my cousins. We'd get to decorate cookies. My uncle would give the same yearly speech about exactly why It's A Wonderful Life had to be on TV, and we couldn't watch anything else. Or he'd ask for opinions on why everyone in Rudolph was missing a finger (frostbite was not an acceptable answer). It was just my family spending time together but there was something extra special about Christmas Eve compared to the rest of the year.

My grandparents had a little white farmhouse and a big red barn nestled in an orchard. My older sister and I would stay with them every summer when we were kids. It was like a magical world filled with cows, pigs, and chickens. Just imagining my sweet little grandmother humming as she went about her busy day in her vegetable garden, rose garden, making bread and jam, canning peaches and pears makes me smile. I still fondly remember following my gruff grandfather out to milk the cow in the evening; he'd squirt some in a cup for us. Wow! Everything tastes better on a farm!

Not one specific memory, but all the walks my Grandfather & I went on. He went on a walk almost every day, just meandering around town.

Whenever I was with him we'd talk about everything. He'd point out places and buildings and tell me the history of them, when they were built, what they had been 10-15-20 yrs ago. He'd tell me about the trees, the plants, the birds, etc that we saw. We'd stop and talk to other people, because he seemed to know just about everyone in town. He'd listen to what I'd done in school that day, give me advice, etc. As I got older we talked about politics, religion, current events, just everything under the sun.

40 years, and I still miss those walks.

Getting my first pair of cats, Phoebe & Joey. Because they introduced me to my love of cats, and they led to getting my five other kitties. While two of my cats are no longer with us, and and two live elsewhere, I love them with all of my being, always and forever

I made a post already, but I wanted to make another for a true childhood memory. Back in 5th grade, quite a while back, I met my now best friend. She and I had never talked before, but she came up to me in class and invited me to her birthday party, saying she thought I seemed nice. That melted my heart alone, I had never been invited to someone's house before. And so I went, and that party, that sleepover, that led to many new friendships, ours included. And after that, we were practically inseparable, in my opinion at least lol. We went to each other's houses often, almost every weekend for sleepovers and just to hang out. We would go out around our neighborhood, and I have many small, happy memories with her. She moved about two years ago during the summer, and while we lost contact a few months ago, I will always look out for her and try to get in touch. She's my best friend, was one of my few friends during my younger years, and I'll always love her

Being happy with not a care in the world…..man what was my 5 year old self thinking about the future today…..

My dad worked a lot, and he worked midnights, so I didn't get to see a lot of him. One of the first nice spring days came around (I was around 5 at the time) and dad decided it would be a great day to go fly kites. I remember running around and having a blast in the warm, windy sunshine. Then we went home and got our jammies on. Mom made popcorn and we watched "The Wizard Of Oz" on tv. Good times.

My favorite memory of my childhood is my back not hurting as much as it does now. I could walk and run, and ride my bike, and climb trees, and play.

Memory #1 - Visiting the beach with my cousins

I remember the beach very distinctly and vividly. Whenever I think of the word 'happiness,' I think immediately of that day on the beach. We were visiting relatives 15 hours away in the countryside and I was (still am) super close with two of my cousins. We found a gorgeous secluded beach with shallow, sparkling, crystal-clear turquoise water and sun-kissed sand. My cousins, my sister and I just waded through the water, talked and played for hours while our parents ate and chatted on the sand.

It sounds like your average day on the beach in Australia, but it was so beautiful and so peaceful. There were no other people, and it was just us there. I felt like everything had been washed away, like the water had scooped out all of my troubles and I was just... floating?

I have many fond memories from when I was little. But this one has always stuck with me:

It was a hot summer afternoon and me and my siblings were impatiently waiting for the moment when the heat wave would break. We didn't have any air conditioning and it was too hot to do anything outside. Me and my siblings sat outside in the shade just waiting for the heat to let up so we could run off and play. I remember eating popsicles and my utter delight when dad surprised us and let us have another one. (We rarely got more than one popsicle a day, so it was a special treat). Then dad said he would take us to the creek to cool off. We thought we were going to the small creek across the road, but nope, dad was taking us to the big creek way across the field. We played in the creek all afternoon. It may seem like a simple afternoon, but it was so special and so much fun. I'll never forget it.

I actually wrote a short story about this particular memory. If you care to read it, here is the link. I hope it works.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dJWh9WAdrxUmVSNwPWzbHF576aFDSUO8Exjg7e-HGsM/edit?usp=sharing

My granddad died when I was 6yo. He was the most wonderful, loving man. And from what I'm told we had a very special bond.

I have two memories of him that makes me so happy. One time, when I visited my grandparents, he took me to the neighbouring field and we attempted to get a kite to fly. But my granddad kept tripping over fist-sized rocks in the field. It was so silly and funny. I remember laughing so much. :)

The other memory is of him taking me out in the garden. He was to dig up potatoes for dinner. But instead of a shovel/spade he had picked a garden fork instead and he kept getting the potatoes stuck on it. Again it was so silly and I remember being soooo amazed that there was all these potatoes in the ground. (I was brought up in the middle of Copenhagen... gardens were sort of exotic and a theoretic thing for me).

Now Christmas is getting near. I want to re-start my tradition of going to the graves of my grandparents and great-grandparents and share a beer with them. Ancester worship is part of my faith and I love to visit their graves and share a beer and perhaps a homemade cookie with them. My oldest kid went with me to make offerings once and she loved it. So I talked with my bf about bringing the kids this year and let them offer some lemonade for their ancestors as I offer my beer and we light a candle. My two fav memories of my grand dad will be what I think about and thank him for when I pour a little beer on his grave.

It's weird how he's been dead for over 30 years and I still get tears in my eyes sometimes because I miss him so much.

Getting together with my large family whether it be for holidays or just having a family picnic. Always had the best time. I had 4 crazy Uncles that kept everyone in stitches with their antics. All gone but one. I miss them terribly

My dad is a preacher, and he'd visit various congregations through Colorado every few weeks. When he visited the one in La Junta, there was a Dunkin' Donuts about halfway between there and Denver. I always got to ride along, and we'd always stop there for a bathroom break. He'd get a coffee and a bear claw, I'd get a jelly donut and an orange Juice. I'm 40 now, and I still always think of those trips every time I go to DD.

Being happy in general, not knowing about all the terrible stuff. I would just sit around playing my DS without worries.