Daniel greatly admired his wife. He described her as a wonderful role model for people. She modeled how to live life and how to face death.
Daniel said his wife wanted to capture life and keep living even as she faced cancer. After several years of living with cancer and enduring many medical procedures, they discovered her treatment options were running out.
In August, Helen and Daniel knew she would die before Christmas. They needed to tell their children. Helen wanted to drive to their colleges rather than make a phone call. And as typical of Helen, she wanted to combine fun in this trip—a trip that centered around informing her son she was dying. “You have to live,” she would say.
Daniel recalls the trip to see their son. “So we drove down to Arkansas, where Brian was, to tell him she’s dying. And then we go on a 14 mile canoe trip. It was just a day trip. I mean, everything was great. Everything went fine. Sort of. We get in the canoe and we promptly fall out.”
Daniel said they all laughed.
Daniel explained more, “Brian’s holding onto a branch and we try to hold on and we all just go in the drink. You know, we had a good time. Obviously, it was sad, but, you know, we got on with life.”
You can carry joy and grief together. But you can carry other complicated emotions together too.
You can have anger or fear, but also carry love and grace. You can offer mercy to others even as you hurt. You can love others even as they don’t understand. You can have faith even if angry with God. Many carry a hope in eternal life through their faith while living with despair on earth.
Because we carry complicated, and sometimes contradictory emotions, it does not make us insincere. It makes us human.
There will be times when joy fills up your day and there is little to no grief. And sometimes, it may be the grief that takes up all the space. We grow from both joy and grief, and we can learn to carry them together.
We do not have to wrap up all the pain in our life before we can have joy again. It is freedom to know that you don’t need closure to heal. It is freedom to know that you can find joy and love even while sad.
Leave a Reply