Gratitude, contentment, appreciation for what life has offered throughout the years from childhood to adulthood is the most overwhelming feeling of satisfaction for life that can ever overwhelm one.
Unless it comes into competition with the all-consuming love between a man and a woman that takes them together through life's journey.

How fortunate that person is who can claim having experienced and continuing to experience that, and more.

Not that tragedy and personal misfortune of one type or another hasn't claimed days of gloom and misery, months of emotional depression coming to acceptance of realities, for no one is immune to disorder in their lives.

But to feel deeply that because of a combination of circumstances and plain good fortune life has smiled kindly upon one enabling the very best that can possibly be offered in terms of happiness and fulfillment is beyond value, ennobling one's existence, providing balm for the soul and the calm of contentment.

Being loved is the culmination of all of humanity's desires and needs. Having that love demonstrated in so many ways throughout the course of existence provides the incentive to glory in life.

That sigh I hear is not the sound of a gentle breeze passing through my garden on a sunny day, pleasing all that grows within it, blazing with colour and fragrance. It is my own inner voice of thankfulness.