Sorrow & Celebration
Just got back from The Compassionate Friends (TCF) National Conference in Bellevue, WA. For those of you not familiar with TCF, they are a bereavement peer support group for parents, siblings, and grandparents. Their motto is, “We Need Not Walk Alone.”
I always thought going to a grief conference meant listening to other people’s pain and sorrow—and me, curling up in a fetal position and crying my eyes out.
In fact, that’s not what it’s about at all.
It feels more like going to a family reunion you’re actually excited to attend. It’s a gathering of a community who gets it—people who know what you're going through. It's one of the only times I get to talk about my sister Lauren without getting the eye roll, the “I’m so sorry for your loss,” or making people feel completely awkward for simply wanting to share memories of her. You know what I’m talking about.
Is there pain and sorrow? Of course. But there’s also lightness and joy. One cannot exist without the other. Think of a dark room with the lights off—once you flip the switch, the light illuminates the darkness.
And on the flip side, we need light in order to create shadows.
This may not be a popular idea, but I believe we need some struggle (i.e., grief) to truly feel contrast—to appreciate happiness and joy. If we were happy every day and never faced challenges, joy would lose its edge. It would stop feeling special. I believe the darker the night, the brighter the day.
That’s what my people do for me. We come together in the sorrow and the celebration. And in doing so, we embrace two sides of the same coin.