The Fine Line Between Joy and Grief

There is a framed print in my office with the quote- “She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.”

It is well-documented that I have always been quick to tears.  This has been the topic of much joking amongst my family and friends for some time.  But last summer, sitting by a river on a star-studded night, I talked with a friend about what is behind the tears.  We explored the idea that just behind many joyful moments, there is some form of grief for how fleeting the moments are or how crushingly beautiful they appear to us.

I have just come off a very special experience as a cast member in a production of Our Town.  The play is a masterpiece and articulates some important truths about the way we live our lives.  Life is indeed too short and we are often not able to appreciate that which is around us each day.  There is a scene in the play when one of the leading characters , who has died in childbirth, wants to return to her life and live over just one day.  Another character explains to her that to return to earth to live over a day is painful because not only do you live it, but you see yourself living it and you know what’s going to happen.  That scene has been rattling around inside me for two months now.  It is a scene in which many audience members were reduced to tears and the actors on stage experienced profound grief.  I’ve wondered how often we are aware of the exquisite preciousness of our days and at some level know we will never see them again.

One of the times when this feeling was especially vivid for me was at the wedding of our daughter.  I even spoke at the rehearsal dinner and tried to articulate the idea of how fleeting it all is.  I reminded the assembled guests to be aware and to be alive and to hold onto the specialness of the occasion.  Through all of the busyness of the wedding weekend, the details, the logistics, the various comings and goings of family and friends, it was very easy to get caught up in the swirl.  And maybe, just maybe, we are reluctant to hold on too tight to the specialness of moments like this because it is heartbreaking to do so.

Perhaps because I am having some difficulty shaking the feelings that Our Town stirred up, I am feeling this bittersweet melancholy in other places in my life.  If you have read any of my blogs in the past or follow me on Facebook, you know that I have a new puppy.  What is remarkable about this dog is that she is a dead ringer for the first and until now, the best dog of my life.  Her name was Morganetta and she too was a yellow Labrador retriever.  She was devoted to me and when she died I was wrecked.  It took years, and I mean years,  for me to be able to talk about this dog without weeping.  So some 25 years later,  to get another yellow lab, this one named Smooch, is to revisit the pure love that I had for my first dog.  Smooch is almost six months old and has slowly but surely worked her way into our hearts.  But here’s where the fine line between joy and grief comes in.  Smooch has some kind of infection that we are trying to get on top of.  I have now had three visits to the vet and we are puzzled about why such a young dog is suffering with this infection.  Now I am an eternal optimist almost all of the time, but yesterday in the vet’s office I felt the nearly hysterical voice of doom creeping into my mind.  I began to go to the worst possible place of- what if we can’t fix this?  What if she’s going to have to eat this expensive, medicated dog food for life?  What if she gets sicker?  What if she dies?  Crazy talk, right?  But right behind my absolute love for this little creature, I am worrying about losing her. 

I honestly think that is why I weep.  My tears are my expression of what is precious.  Sometimes it is real sadness and sometimes it is unmistakable joy, but almost always, these feelings are right near the edge of the opposite side of those feelings.  For where there is joy, there is grief and where there is grief, there is joy.

So for now, I will celebrate the experience of being part of Our Town, I will love my puppy and happily feed her expensive, medicated dog food and I will savor the special moments in my life.  What about you?