When Joy and Sadness Share the Same Space

These days, there’s a whole lot swirling around in my head, my heart and even in my home, where the kitchen is under construction and everything seems to be out of place and covered in dust.

The good news is that the mess, while inconvenient and distracting, has not derailed me. That, my friends, is a faint sign of growth. Not huge growth, like I’m hoping to see on the fast-growing juniper bushes I planted in my backyard a few weeks ago. But growth nonetheless, when you consider how anxious and irritable I used to get a decade or so ago when one little thing was out of place.

If nothing else, life has a way of making us more flexible, doesn’t it?

Last Monday night, I was the only participant at my GriefShare group. The sweet leader and I watched the video together and then sat and talked for a long time, just the two of us.

I pulled out my phone and showed her pictures of my parents, back when they were still looking happy and healthy. Then I shared pictures of my dad near the end of his life, including some where we were sitting close together on the loveseat in his room at the nursing home.

He was leaning up against me and I was holding his hand.

The quality of the picture isn’t great—it’s dark and we’re both sorta schlumpy looking. But the moments that Molly captured on my iPhone were sacred.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now.

I started writing this on Oct. 29, exactly five months after my dad died. I’ll be posting it on Nov. 5, which is my 49^th birthday.

Honestly, I don’t know what that day will be like. I do know that it’s Election Day, and I’ll be taking Lilly to vote for the first time.

Her birthday is one day before mine, and she’s all excited about turning 18 and being able to do all the things 18-year-olds get to do. As she should be.

So we have a daughter turning 18, me turning 49 (a number which, honestly, isn’t that big of a deal to me), me having my first birthday without my parents (which might be a big deal but I won’t know until it happens) and the space in my house where I spend most of my time under construction.

On top of all that, we’ve now officially reached the season when, one year ago, my dad’s health really started declining. I don’t even have to consult my prayer journal or calendar to remember all the sad events, one after another. They’re seared in my memory like they just happened yesterday.

I don’t think I’m suffering from PTSD or anything. It’s more of a quiet realization that never quite leaves. The other day, for example, I got an email from the U.S. Postal Service telling me that the mail-forwarding service I started on Nov. 30, 2018, would end on the same date this year.

I didn’t sign up for a year initially. It was just for one month, because my dad was supposed to have gone to rehab, gotten better and then moved to assisted living, where he could resume getting his own mail.

That was the plan, anyway. But it never happened, and I kept adding more months of mail forwarding, knowing that someday, I’d have to make it permanent.

Back then, I didn’t realize what permanent was going to look like. Now, of course, I have a much better idea.

At least when it comes to my parents. They’re with Jesus; they’re good.

As for me, I’m good too. I’m also sad, sometimes. But I’m learning, as those who have loved and lost before me, that joy and sadness can coexist. That grief won’t break me; that as I move through it, it softens.

Many of the memories ache now, but as my heart is healing, they’re growing warmer.

My dad turned 86 the day before he died. When I wrote a blog post about his birthday, I ended with Psalm 118:24—a verse in his favorite essay, and one that I see in my egg carton every morning when I’m making breakfast.

“This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Out of all the verses in the Bible, that’s the one that comes to mind now, as I write about my own birthday.

The past is done; the future is unknown. But the God of all our days has given us this one to enjoy, so let’s get on with it.

♥ Lois

P.S. Thanks to all of you who commented about Randy’s lovely signs last week (and were thereby entered in a drawing to win one). And the winner is … Valerie Riese from Wisconsin, who blogs at victorythroughsurrender.com. I’ll be in touch, Valerie!

Finally, I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, Let’s Have Coffee, Faith on Fire, Faith ‘n Friends and Grace & Truth.