It’s playing on the radio in the car this afternoon. I’ve taught my kid how to do the “bah bah bah” response part with the chorus, and she cheerfully does so right on time from the backseat. It reminds me of good times at Fenway Park, and I tell her that someday I’ll get her to a Red Sox game and we can sing this song there together. Someday I’ll get her to Boston. She shouts hooray behind me.

And then she asks me:

“Is any of your family still living there?”

“No, honey,” I reply. “They’re all dead or gone.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “Is anyone you love still there?”

You see, my daughter knows that family isn’t always blood. She knows, without great detail and without direct personal experience, that family can be complicated. She knows, even at six-and-three-quarters years old, that there’s a subtle difference between the two questions she’s asking.

“Well,” I reply thoughtfully, “there are still some people that I know there, people I used to know. But it’s not the same. That’s okay though.”

As my voice fades out, she keeps singing along to the next song, probably already thinking about something else. It’s a tiny gift, because my own mind has wandered to a place I used to know. A place that I know looks and feels so very different now from my own history with it, a place that perhaps exists now only in my memory. The buildings are still there. The street names are the same. If I were to guess, I’d say the sounds are pretty similar. But everyone I once called family is gone from that place. Most are dead, and the very few who aren’t live in different states thousands of miles away.

Normally, I bury such thoughts. But I let my memories walk that ghost town for a bit, while she blissfully enjoys the music. She’s unaware of how haunted her mother is. I try to keep it that way. It isn’t a burden she needs to share.

And yet, I surprise even myself today as I drive down the road. This time, the pain I typically expect from these memories doesn’t really come. Instead, a wistful smile crosses my face, and lingers. Instead, this time, it all just feels like part of me, one that feels more accepted than usual. Instead of the grief, I feel…joy.

I guess you could say that good times never seemed so good.