Life in Pieces: How Grief and Joy Fit Side by Side
Gladness interlocks with grief. Hope is mixed with hurting. Joy and sadness rest side by side.
Do you find yourself with mixed emotions during life’s big moments? If so, you are not alone. Read on to uncover the mystery behind our conflicted feelings.
As “Pomp and Circumstance” played, I searched for the brightly colored cap. Leah had decorated it with puzzle pieces and music notes. Which wasn’t at all surprising.
Our daughter loves puzzles. Whether it’s a light 500-piece puzzle she can finish in a couple of hours or a challenging 6000-piecer like the one currently spread out over our basement table, she loves assembling the pieces into one big, glorious picture.
My Dad loved puzzles too. He spent the last several winters of his life assembling puzzles on their sprawling dining room table. In the spring, my sisters and I would take a few pictures of him with his puzzles, and then he'd break them all up in time to clear the table for Easter dinner with the family.
Dad also loved music. He beamed whenever his kids and later, his grandkids sang and played for him. One of those grandkids was Leah, who shared her Grandpa’s passion not only for puzzles but also for music.
“Mommy, can I pleeeease take piano lessons?” she said when she was five years old.
“Are you sure you want to start already? You know you’re going to have to practice every day.”
“I know, I know! And I will! Pleeeease?” She looked up at me from the piano bench with pleading eyes.
I made some calls and found a piano teacher. And Leah’s passion took root. Though she struggled as a kid with ADHD, and as a teen with scoliosis and Type 1 Diabetes, she found solace in her music. When it came time to choose a career path, she chose music education and headed off to DePauw University. It seemed all the pieces were falling into place for her future.
Assembling the puzzle
But that’s not what happened. In college, she encountered more struggles. Rigorous academics, hours of piano practice, and the loss of a high school friend in a car accident raised her stress level to a new high. At the end of her freshman year, a tough piano teacher nearly crushed her spirit when she said, “Have you ever thought about another career?”
It was difficult, but Leah persevered. She reassembled her puzzle as she changed majors twice and finally landed on Music Therapy. In this field she could use her musical gifts to help the disabled, the elderly, and those with physical pain or mental health issues. She wanted to share with others the healing power of music she had experienced. Before her junior year, she transferred to Indiana Wesleyan, where she found a loving piano teacher that pushed her to succeed in all the right ways.
This time, Leah’s puzzle came together. Once she found all the right pieces and fit them into place, she could see the big picture that God had designed for her all along. Last week, after six grueling years of school, she completed her college education.
As I searched for her colorful mortarboard, I glanced at the program and saw the title of the commencement address: “Solving the Puzzle.” I chuckled at the coincidence. Turns out, the message given by a husband/wife team of student mentors couldn’t have been a more perfect fit for Leah. We laughed about it afterward and she reveled in the joy of her achievements–in the completion of her puzzle.
Missing Pieces
Despite the festivities of the day and my true happiness for Leah, there was a cloud hanging over my heart that day. I kept thinking of my dad. It has been ten months since his death and, as is normal during the grieving process, I especially miss him on holidays and special occasions.
Leah’s graduation was an occasion he would have loved. He would have been so proud of her, just as he was of all of his grandchildren. Thinking of him and, like Leah, his passion for puzzles and music, made me miss him even more. There was a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away, and every time I thought about or spoke of him, my voice would quiver and the tears would well up.
Yes, Leah had put the last piece into her puzzle. And we couldn’t have been more happy for her.
But my puzzle? It was missing a very important piece. My picture was incomplete, and that missing piece left an emptiness I couldn’t shake.
Tug o’ war
It struck me how closely joy and grief resided in my heart. I’m not sure why it surprised me, as those two emotions have been playing tug-o’-war in human hearts for as long as human hearts have had feelings. And the battle continues.
We celebrate the arrival of vaccines and declining COVID case numbers. Yet, we see suffering around the globe and our hearts ache for those in India and South America.
I celebrate my daughters’ graduations, yet I mourn for my sister and her daughters who missed theirs last year. As schools begin to put on musical performances and concerts, I am saddened by all those that were missed in 2020.
The celebrations that culminate the end of a long journey, like our children’s graduations and weddings, fill us with joy. They also bring a feeling of loss as we let go of our little ones’ hands.
This Sunday I will celebrate my first Mothers’ Day as a grandmother and my daughter-in-law’s first one as a mother. And yet, there is another hole in my heart on this first Mothers’ Day without my own mother.
Gladness interlocks with grief. Hope is mixed with hurting. Joy and sadness rest side by side.
This life is our puzzle. Sometimes the pieces fit and we see the big picture. But often, our view is broken and scattered, with missing pieces that leave our hearts yearning for someone or something more.
Life goes on
As Leah worked on her cap, I noticed that the middle seemed empty. Like it was missing something. And so she filled the dark space with a music note–a fitting symbol of how music can soothe our emptiness. Whether I’m listening to Spotify, singing on our worship team, hearing Leah play the piano, or watching our high school’s performance (in person!) of “Into the Woods,” music has been a balm that relieves my sadness.
But music isn’t a “get-out-of-grief-free” card. It can help, but there’s no simple way through pain and grief. There will be tight throats and gentle tears. A quivering voice and even an occasional “ugly cry.” The only way to get through grief is to experience it.
Thankfully, there are also reasons to celebrate, and moments of gladness along the way that can color our days. As our puzzle fills in around the missing pieces, our joy expands and grows around the grief.
Life goes on. Even as grief and joy fit side by side.
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
…a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecc. 3: 1, 4, 11)