Warning: LONG readđđĽ°â¤ď¸ďżź
I have learned that sorrow and joy do not live on opposite sides of a life.
Sometimes, they sit beside one another.
Sometimes, they inhabit the very same month, the same week, even the same dayâeach asking to be felt.
September has always known this about me.
It holds the anniversary of my husbandâs death, a date forever etched into my heart. And yet, only two days later, it asks me to celebrate my sonâs birthday. Two weeks later, there was my sisterâs weddingâa day of beginnings held in the same month that carried one of my deepest endings.
And years later, September would come full circle in ways I could never have imagined. Both of my daughters marrying near that same anniversary date.
Love returning to a place once marked by loss.
October carries its own beautiful, painful contradiction.
October 14 is my sonâs birthday.
October 26 is my daughterâs birthday.
And the day after she was born, just two weeks after celebrating his second birthday, my little boy left this life.
How can one heart possibly hold all of that?
A birthday cake
A wedding.
A newborn baby.
A husband gone too soon.
A little boy turning two.
And then an unimaginable goodbye.
For a long time, perhaps I thought joy and sorrow were oppositesâthat one somehow diminished the other. That to laugh too loudly during a season of grief might somehow betray the ones I had lost. Or that sorrow appearing in the middle of something beautiful meant I wasn’t fully grateful for the joy before me.
But life has taught me something different.
They are not opposites.
They are companions.
The yin and yang of being human.
There can be a hollow ache in my chest while I am surrounded by people I love. I can miss someone desperately and still laugh until tears run down my face. I can stand at my daughter’s wedding filled with joy and, somewhere quietly inside me, feel the presence of those who should have been standing there too.
One feeling does not cancel the other.
Perhaps the depth of our sorrow is possible precisely because we have loved so deeply.
And perhaps joy, after loss, becomes even more sacred because we understand how fragile and extraordinary an ordinary day really is.
September and October remind me of that every year.
They are months of anniversaries and birthdays, weddings and memories, beginnings and endings. They carry ghosts and celebrations. They remind me of who was here, who is still here, and how fiercely I have loved them all.
I no longer need these things to make sense together.
I simply allow them to belong together.
I can grieve and celebrate.
I can remember and continue.
I can ache and still be grateful.
I can carry those I have lost while embracing those standing in front of me.
There is room for all of it.
Maybe that is what a life fully lived eventually teaches us:
The heart does not have to choose between sorrow and joy.
Somehow, impossibly and beautifully, it expands enough to hold both.
Maybe that is why I return to Beacon Rock every year.
It has become its own kind of ritual for meâa celebration, a challenge, and a release.
Today, I climbed again.
The trail rises steeply against the rock, and for someone afraid of heights, there are places where every part of me wants to retreat. At one point I found myself clutching the granite beside me, trying to steady myself against the height.
A couple passing by stopped.
âAre you okay?â
Such a small question and concern from people who didn’t know me. And yet there was something so tender about being noticed by strangers on a mountain.
I kept climbing.
Along the way I met lovely people. There were smiles and conversations, encouragement and connection. And then, in one of those encounters that seems to arrive exactly when it is supposed to, I met a strangerâa Buddhist spiritual teacher, a prophet in his own wayâwho stopped and shared an affirmation with me.
There were hugs.
And before we parted, an unexpected:
âI love you.â
From a stranger.
On a mountain.
During a season that has held some of the greatest love and deepest sorrow of my life.
And somehow, it didn’t feel strange at all.
It felt like grace.
Maybe Beacon Rock is why I understand the lesson a little more clearly today.
Sometimes life asks us to keep climbing while we’re afraid.
Sometimes we cling tightly to the rock.
Sometimes someone notices and asks if we’re okay.
Sometimes a stranger reminds us that we are loved.
And eventually, we loosen our grip.
We breathe.
We look out.
And we realize just how far we’ve climbed.
perhaps my annual climb is also my way of saying:
I am still here.
Still climbing.
Still afraid sometimes.
Still letting go.
Still loving.
Still allowing myself to be loved.
Still willing to be surprised by the kindness of strangers.
Still choosing to look out over the edge and see how beautiful this life can be.
I no longer need sorrow and joy to make sense together.
I simply allow them to belong together.
I can grieve and celebrate.
I can remember and continue.
I can be afraid and still climb.
I can hold on when I need toâand release when I am ready.
I can carry those I have lost while embracing those who are here.
There is room for all of it.
And today, somewhere between the granite beneath my hand, the fear I kept moving through, the kindness of strangers, and the view waiting above me, I remembered: we arenât guaranteed tomorrow, so live in this moment with gratitude and grace ďżź
With light â¨Denise
