I didn't it was possible, quite truthfully. All the grieving and feeling I've done over the past fifteen months is spawning the strangest joy. Joy that I was sure would never come again has come round and it is so very lovely. I would think there are others like myself, those who have lost their sibling lifeline, that have thought the era of unadulterated joy had ended too. I certainly had. Does that sound strange? Today, a daughter of two wonderful parents, a sister of a golden boy who walked this earth for nineteen years, a wife of a boy whose very self is nice, a friend of so many I count as precious and a mother to four bambinos. It would seem joy was in the midst of it all, yet it wasn't and I didn't even know.
Being happy and being joyful are far from one another is what I've learned, at least for me. I associated joy with the before, you know, before my big brother died. In hindsight, my life seemed to have been perfectly idyllic, though we all know that's not true. It was pretty good though and my days were not marked by tragedy as they have been for two dozen years now. Days dotted with happiness? Yes. True joy? No.
I hadn't known it was there all along, just waiting for me to come by and scoop it up. Isn't that a pleasant thought? A shoe box not wrapped, though its' lid firmly in place, full of goodies and joy and I had left it sitting on my closet shelf. Why had I done that? I think I relied too much on myself, decided the grief may swallow me whole so I would swallow it first. Unearthing all the hard memories and tears and love for the gentle soul named Adam, well, it has done a body good. And those around me too, I think. Last night, we took my oldest son out on the town in Miami and he wore his first suit and was filled with confidence. I snapped this picture of him by a fancy car, my dad's suggestion, and later in the evening, I unearthed a photo from some thirty years ago of that brother of mine. Two instances of joy intertwined because we chose to relive history in a good way, a much needed reminder that we are the ones that choose.
