Sentence:  You wonder about the Christmas card with no name on it , and it comes to you that maybe it would have <WSD>been</WSD> better to have made somebody else happy if you could n't be happy yourself , to give somebody else the one they wanted - to give them you . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)