Joy and Pain

Children can bring so much joy and also so much grief. Life seems to be full of ironies like that. My mom used to say that she could only be as happy as her saddest child. I now know what she means. How do I keep all my children and my husband happy at the same time? And when one of us is down, it's like there is a black rain cloud over the whole family. Ruth Michael and I struggle with the same melancholy demeanor. Lately, she has turned a corner and no longer wants to go to school. She cries when I drop her off at school, and in the evening she starts worrying out loud about school the following day. We try to ask her what could be happening at school that makes her so fearful, but she has no reply. Are the children at school bullying you? no. Does your teacher treat you unkindly? no. Does the work you do seem too difficult? no. no. no. and no. I tried letting her stay home one day. I tried letting her come home a little early another day. I tried bribing her with ice cream. Finally, we got tough with her and told her that if she can't be happy at school then she can't watch T.V. anymore. She promptly responded that she guessed she just wouldn't have anymore T.V. because she could not be happy at school. We have talked to her teachers and the director and everyone is baffled. What I now know, is that leaving your kid crying at school in the mornings day after day feels really, really bad. This brings the general happiness of the whole family down a couple of notches. We all feel the pain a little bit. Then, add on to that a teenager who has never liked school and a husband who is sleep deprived because of the wakefulness of our children at night, and things aren't looking too pretty.

You cannot have deep love without also experiencing deep pain. The pain I feel over Ruth Michael's tears is only because I love her so much, and I wouldn't trade that love for a million tear-free years. The problem comes when I am called upon to be the cheerleader of the family. This is not a natural role for me... then again, it would seem that life rarely allows me to fulfill roles that I would consider natural. My parents and I often laugh when we recall the years we had together, just the three of us, after my brothers and sister had left home. My mom was the cheerleader on those evenings when my dad and I were in more somber moods. We would sit around the dinner table, and she would try everything she knew to bring up cheerful conversation. Let's just say, she had her work cut out for her. Some days I feel like I'm trying to do what she did, and I have very big shoes to fill.

How do you find joy when you aren't happy and how do you help others find it? These are billion dollar questions, I think, and the answers vary from person to person. For me, I have learned that I have to retreat, process, read, think, write, focus. And I have also learned that there is no way to transfer joy to another person directly, but joy can be contagious. I know this because I have been around people whose joy has rubbed off on me before. Sometimes it's a person who is naturally joyful and jovial, like Chris or Abby-Jones or my mom. Other times it is people who are naturally more thoughtful or pensive, and their unexpected bit of humor or light-heartedness catches me by surprise and makes me smile on the inside as well as on the outside. Iddy and Ruth Michael and my dad all have this effect on me. But then there are days when everyone just seems to drop below the "happy" threshold at the same time. On those days I look out at the ocean and consider God's love for me, or I look up at the stars and try to grasp the vastness of the canvas on which that beautiful picture was painted, or I hug someone that I love and feel the warmth that goes so far beyond physical energy and moving particles. God has truly given me everything I need to live a joyful life. I hope it rubs off on people around me. I have started telling Ruth Michael to stop being a rain cloud and start being a ray of sunshine. That is what I want to be for my family; a ray of sunshine that brings light and life and warmth. I guess if one sun can manage to do that for the entire earth, and one Son can do it for all of humanity, then I can find a way to do it for my own family. Lord, when my family needs me to spread the joy around, please give me an extra dose!