Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.

“Happiness is hard to recall. It’s just a glow.” Thus wrote Frank McCourt, the Irish-American author whose words were born from the struggle and sorrow of his own life. In this quiet reflection, McCourt captures one of the most delicate truths of human experience: that happiness, unlike pain, does not remain sharply carved in memory. It does not leave scars or cries or vivid images—it leaves a warmth, a radiance, a glow. While sorrow etches itself into the heart with precision, happiness lingers like the fading light of sunset, soft, comforting, and elusive. It cannot be held, only felt in the remembering.

McCourt, whose childhood was marked by poverty, loss, and hardship in the rain-swept lanes of Limerick, understood the nature of both suffering and joy. His famous memoir, Angela’s Ashes, is filled with the ache of deprivation—but also with small, luminous moments of laughter, tenderness, and grace. For one who lived much of his life in struggle, happiness was not a constant blaze but a flicker, often noticed only when looking back. When he says it is “hard to recall,” he speaks not from cynicism, but from truth: that happiness, unlike sorrow, leaves no sharp edges in memory because it is not an event—it is a feeling, fragile and fleeting.

This idea echoes the wisdom of the ancients. The philosopher Epicurus taught that pleasure, the root of happiness, is often quiet and natural—a freedom from pain, a peace of the soul. Yet such peace is difficult to remember once it has passed. The heart remembers the storm more vividly than the calm that followed it. Even Aristotle, who called happiness the highest good, acknowledged that it is not a moment but a state—a kind of harmony of the soul. And harmony, once broken, is remembered only as a lingering echo. Thus, McCourt’s “glow” is that echo—the faint, golden warmth that remains after life’s fierce fires have burned out.

To understand his meaning more fully, consider the life of Anne Frank, the young girl who, even in hiding from the horrors of war, found moments of pure joy. In her diary, she wrote of laughter shared, of glimpses of sunlight through a window, of faith in goodness despite despair. Those moments, though fleeting, sustained her spirit. They were not loud or lasting, but they glowed. Even after her death, that glow remained, passing from her heart into the hearts of generations who read her words. Happiness, for Anne, was not something she could hold—but something that lived in her and through her, beyond even memory.