Grief and Gratitude

I wrote last week about how grief and gratitude can coexist within us. I am expounding upon it more in this space. On the surface, this concept may sound counterintuitive, but in reality, it is more commonplace than one may think. When we love, inevitably that love will not last forever. This is the nature and cycle of life. Love is an ebb and flow of embracing it and one day, letting it go in the physical sense. However, in knowing and feeling that level of grief with losing someone we love, we also have the capacity for gratitude as well.

Some may ask, how can we experience both grief and gratitude? How can they both take up residence in one's heart? If we take a step back for a moment, we can reflect on how this is possible. When we lose someone or something that we hold dear, it's natural for us to shift our being to pain and grief. If we lose a parent, a child, a spouse, or someone else close, we feel an indescribable void--as if a part of us has died with them. In the throes of grieving, it seems incomprehensible to feel any sense of gratitude, however, in time, we begin to slowly inculcate it into our lives for having known, felt, and loved that person.

Gratitude is defined as the quality of being thankful. The readiness to show appreciation for and return kindness. Gratitude can show up, look, and feel different to each person. It is an emotion we all experience and express in our own way. The beauty of gratitude is when it manifests while we are on the precipice of grief. It is there where we can find solace in knowing that our loved one experienced us and we experienced them...

~Gabriel