The past several weeks have reminded me just how fragile life can be.
Our community has been shaken by devastating tragedies. Families are grieving the loss of their children. Friends are facing heartbreaking uncertainty. Others are sitting beside hospital beds waiting and hoping for good news.
The pain feels close.
It feels personal.
At the same time, I am here in another city with our youngest daughter, as she prepares to welcome her first child into the world. Her husband is deployed far away serving our country, and I am grateful to be here helping her prepare for the arrival of baby Avi, our second grandson.
And if I'm honest, I have found myself struggling with the contrast.
Part of my heart is celebrating.
Part of my heart is grieving.
I have found myself wondering how to hold both.
How do I celebrate a new life while others are mourning devastating losses?
How do I post pictures of swimming, family gatherings, and baby preparations when people I love are living through some of the hardest days of their lives?
As I sat with those questions, I realized this isn't the first time life has asked me to hold joy and sorrow at the same time.
Years after my cousin Kathy was murdered, I was still carrying anger, regret, and unanswered questions. My sponsor, Laura, suggested a forgiveness study and invited several of us to participate.
Each of us came carrying something.
Different losses.
Different regrets.
Different wounds.
Some of us were learning to forgive others.
Some of us were learning to forgive ourselves.
Most of us were doing both.
For more than a year, we read together, reflected together, prayed together, and learned together.
The work wasn't about forgetting.
It wasn't about excusing.
It was about healing.
The work did not change the past.
It changed us.
Years later, while waiting at John Muir Trauma Hospital as doctors fought to save Matt's life, I remember looking at Laura and saying, "Now I know why we were doing all this forgiveness work."
In that moment, I understood that the spiritual principles we had been practicing—faith, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion, and love—would become the very things I needed to survive.
The grief didn't disappear.
The heartbreak didn't end.
But I learned something that continues to guide me today.
Love holds both.
It holds grief and gratitude.
Heartbreak and hope.
Loss and new beginnings.
Perhaps that is why these recent events have touched me so deeply.
The people who once sat beside me in waiting rooms, prayed with me, cried with me, and helped carry me through my darkest moments are now facing challenges of their own.
I cannot take away their pain.
I cannot fix what is broken.
But I can do what others once did for me.
I can show up.
I can listen.
I can pray.
I can love them through it.
As I wait for Avi's arrival, my heart is celebrating with one family while aching alongside others.
Today, I am learning once again that grief and gratitude are not opposites.
They can exist in the same heart.
Perhaps healing is not about choosing one over the other.
Perhaps healing is staying connected—to God, to one another, and to love—even when life asks us to carry both.
