If no Grief, then no Joy?

In this rare moment of quiet, I am sitting here trying to think. While I am a pretty good multi-tasker, I am not that good at deep thinking or processing emotion in the midst of the chaos that normally ensues around here. I need these moments, these calm and peaceful moments, to think and be introspective and sort through the emotional jumble that is inside my head and heart.
This is the beginning of the hardest week of my year. And this year seems particularly hard. It is year #5 and it feels bigger, harder. A milestone.
In the past, I have struggled with feeling like I have to grieve as on-lookers would expect me to grieve. Appropriately emotional and yet able to keep it together and look at "the bright side." I am trying to let go of that and just be what I need to be, grieve how I need to grieve.
I recently had a conversation with someone I deeply love (and if you are reading this, know that I do deeply love you.) She asked me about our plans for remembering Micah this year. We have a couple things in the works and she wanted to know the status. During the conversation, I broke down, trying to open up to her and share my true self, I didn't hold back the tears. I could have. But I decided to let her see what I was truly feeling.
"I am having a bit of a hard time this year," I told her. "This year feels big, like it was so long ago but is still so raw. It just seems so unfixable. This hole I feel, it is so unfixable."

Instead of simply saying she missed him too or some other empathetic offering, she began to tell me how hard it has been to watch me grieve Micah- how she hoped that someday I would be able to "just remember" and not have it be such "raw grief." She went on to talk about how she often thinks about two babies that she lost to miscarriage and wonders if they had lived would she have had her youngest girl. "Would you not have had Lucas and Caden and known that joy had Micah lived?"
Now, to her credit, she is in NO WAY trying to say that having Lucas and Caden makes the loss of Micah any less significant or tragic. Her point, I think, was simply that moving on with my life may mean focusing more on the joy I have with my two boys than on the grief I have over losing one. And she is probably right. Probably.

I wrote recently about feeling angry that God did not answer my prayers and heal Micah. Family and friends and even some random people in bloggy-land have e-mailed me with concern that I am still so "angry" and that I am not focusing on the joy that God has given me. I don't think that is the whole picture. You are all right, that keeping my eye on my boys and the blessings they are to me is honoring Micah and his memory. Enjoying life and staying positive is the way to keep the grief from swallowing me whole. But, I truthfully don't know what to do with this premise that I am missing out on the experience of full joy by focusing too much on the experience of real grief. I have both. I hold both. And there are moments when one or the other mostly shuts the other out. But never completely. That is the nature of this grief, and this joy.
And maybe that premise is true to some extent. Maybe I will never know what it is like to have untainted joy. If Micah had lived, if that fateful ultrasound had been "normal" and uneventful,... What would my maternal joy feel like then? How many children would I have? How much joy would I know if I had never known grief?
I don't like to ask the question "would Lucas and Caden exist if Micah had lived?" It feels like having to choose between my three boys. God is bigger than that, to me. He has known from the inception of this world that someday I would lose my first son and then be blessed with two more. I don't have to figure that out. And I would never be able to.

This kind of goes both ways. My grief may taint my joy at times. But doesn't it also make it more rich? The depth to which I am grateful for my boys is deeper because I know the pain of losing one. I love them differently having lost than if I had never known this grief. I am not saying I love my kids any more than a mother who has not grieved. I just love them differently, with a bigger sense of appreciation and gratitude. And even a little bit of fear thrown in there since I know that my boys are a gift that I am not in complete control over. God holds those reins.

But the question still remains- If I had never known this grief, would I know this joy? What would it mean to know joy if I had never known grief? Would I experience joy more deeply without grief or does the grief make the joy more full?

And more fundamental... are grief and joy even really opposites or... What is the opposite of grief? One emotion certainly changes the experience of the other. But in what ways, I am not sure I really know. I thought by now I would know more. It is, after all, year 5. And yet, it is only year 5.
One thing I do know- I certainly know grief. Raw, intense, overwhelming, unfixable grief. But I also know joy. Vibrant, consuming, warms-you-from-the-inside joy. My grief is part of me. And maybe I am afraid to let it go for fear of what that would mean. But those who know me would hopefully also say that my joy is part of me too. My boys are truly the light of my life and I cherish my moments and my life with them.

Here I sit. Holding both the grief and the joy. This week will be a strange mix of both. Making time to grieve but also being with my boys and living life. It is like rain when the sun is shining, or standing on the beach in the midst of a storm. Grieving Micah, but also joy. Joy that he was here for even those three days. Joy that I have Lucas and Caden and can teach them about their brother. Grief and Joy. Together in my soul. Probably forever. But if not, at least for now. And I am o.k. with that.

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photo credit:maz hewitt