Grief and Joy
The grief experts tell us that, especially over the holidays, we have to let grief and joy co-exist. As if grief and joy are two contrary family members that you can simply seat at opposite ends of the table. Ha! Grief and joy sit wherever they want to sit! They don’t follow instructions! They do their own thing! Yes, of course, we have to let them co-exist. We have no choice! They rule the roost! We have no control over when they visit and how long they stay.
Sometimes grief shows up without joy. With no warning. It happens. I’ve learned to ride it out. If I’m alone, I let it take as long as it takes. If I’m with people, I force my mind to go somewhere else; I smother the grief with a distraction. Other times, joy shows up without grief. These moments are special. I try to enjoy them; I try not to think about Steve not being there to enjoy them. If I go there, and it’s hard not to, if I think about Steve not being with us experiencing this joy, I end up in grief! It’s all so unmanageable, so messy.
Then there are those times that both grief and joy show up together. This happened to me recently. I hadn’t decorated the house or put up the tree since we lost little Steve, but this year, I lugged the boxes out. When I opened the very first box, I found a piece of construction paper. It was a Christmas card Steve made in kindergarten. I picked it up, held it to my chest, sighed, cried. Grief. But, grateful, too. Grateful that I kept this drawing, that I had this memory to hold. I felt compelled to place the Christmas card on top of the memorial box we have displayed. So now I look at the Christmas tree Steve drew in kindergarten on top of the flag given to us at his burial. So many emotions. So messy.
When the kids were little, they had plastic plates with airplanes and trains on them, and dividers, so their foods didn’t touch. I think about those plates a lot now. I still eat like a toddler. I don’t like casseroles or stews. I don’t like my foods to touch. I wondered if it were easier for people who let their foods touch. Maybe they were better able to let grief and joy co-exist. But my husband’s favorite foods can be eaten with a spork, and he wrestles with joy and grief, too. That blew my theory out of the water. I don’t think there’s an easy solution.
Like two relatives from two different worlds, opposite in everything except their presence in your company, maybe we just have to recognize that both joy and grief will always be part of the family tree. We can do our best to accommodate them, but we won’t change them. We can’t schedule their arrival or departure times; we can’t divide them into distinctly separate identities. As messy as it may be, we’ve just got to learn to live with them.