The Juxtaposition of Joy and Sorrow

February 23rd, 2014
I Skyped with Plain Grandma today. There is nothing plain about my maternal grandmother, but this is the name she endearingly acquired when we were young. My dad's mother is NieNie as my cousin Adrienne worked to articulate "Jeannie" when she was a little girl.

My heart is aching for my abuelita right now. Grandpa Art was diagnosed with dementia some years ago and in the past months he has been deteriorating more rapidly, bringing nearer the day when Gram will bring him into the care of specialized staff. While I want to emphasize to her that this will be a good thing for Grandpa because he will easily make friends in his new home, and she has so much spunk yet and so this newfound freedom will be good for her too, it's tearing me up. In moments like now it steals my breath away to think first about her pain in the face of this great life change, and my own sorrow for seeing parts of my Grandpa slip away. The Silver Lining is that that sweet man still has his sense of humor. Well, actually, while I can call him sweet, his sense of humor is kind of wicked. As an adult, I now understand he sometimes tells dirty jokes. It's funny, I can't lie.

There has always been such goodness in my grandpa, and that certainly lives on despite his grapples to remember details from past and present. When I struggle with whether there is more pain than joy in the world, more darkness than light, it is in thinking about him that I feel hope. He is imperfect as the rest of us, but Grandpa has always extended great kindness to the world and those around him. He is also the reason that, while many people have a phobia for attending the dentist, it is actually my favorite doctor to see. Grandpa had a dental practice in Superior, Wisconsin, and he was the most gentle of dentists that a little girl could visit. 

As a reader, a teacher, a Truth-seeker, I often turn to books as I work to make sense of the world. Today I am back to Kahlil Gibran. 

At the end of his time student teaching, Michael gave me The Prophet by Gibran. The first time I began reading it, the wisdom would have been welcome, but I wasn't in the right place to digest it. When I picked up the book again months later, I loved it so much that it has found a place on my list of books everyone should read. The part of his work I have found most powerful are Gibran's thoughts "On Joy and Sorrow." He writes,

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. 

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

And so it is, that sorrow is as real as joy, and joy as real as sorrow. The romantic side of me, while working to live in the present, imagines that those moments of joy always hang suspended in the Universe, twinkling like stars in the clear night. In my mind's eye, they come to wrap themselves around Grandma right now, somehow soothing some of her pain, reminding her of beauty. 

Deember 11th, 2015
And now I sit in my living room in Quito, having just spoken with Linds who told me of Grandpa's passing at 4:30 this afternoon. I am gazing at the mountains and the wispy clouds and the last colors of the sunset as the sun has already fallen behind the mountains, and I'm thinking of you, dear abuelito, who brought so much goodness and beauty to this world. And because of the husband and father and grandfather and friend that you have been to us, that goodness and beauty lives on in us. 

And tonight you shine down on us, you bright and beautiful star. 

Te amo a la luna y lejos, my sweet abuelito. 

Grandpa Art and his mother, Grandma Shirley, a photo that sits on my night stand. 

Home to hug you soon, my dear abuelita. XOXOXO