{"id":2494,"date":"2019-07-08T07:28:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T11:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=2494"},"modified":"2019-07-08T13:26:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T17:26:59","slug":"tears-of-joy-tears-of-sorrow-sometimes-i-just-need-a-good-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/tears-of-joy-tears-of-sorrow-sometimes-i-just-need-a-good-cry\/","title":{"rendered":"Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow, Sometimes I Just Need a Good Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2495 size-large\" title=\"&lt; IMG &gt;\n  alt : Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow, Sometimes I Just Need a Good Cry  Robin Botie of Ithaca photographs magic carpet spirea for illustration of how joy and sorrow can blossom together.\" src=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow, Sometimes I Just Need a Good Cry  Robin Botie of Ithaca photographs magic carpet spirea for illustration of how joy and sorrow can blossom together.\" width=\"625\" height=\"937\" data-popupalt-original-title=\"null\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost-624x936.jpg 624w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/CryPost.jpg 1075w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a>Sometimes I just need a good cry. Preferably at the movies where I can recover easily, I might have said in the past. But a good cry should not be feared. And an opportunity to do some serious sobbing came up the other evening when a small group of bereaved parents had baked a cake, and were singing Happy Birthday to one of our deceased children. Watching the exquisite storm of gratitude, pain, and love in the mother\u2019s eyes, I remembered that conflicting whirlwind of emotions\u2014the joy of having your child remembered and honored, the sadness of seeing each subsequent birthday sweep you ever further away from the time you were together, and just plain missing your beloved one\u2014This can turn the toughest of us into desperate howling messes. A similar, old familiar storm brewed in my own heart. And I welcomed it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">If you are not one of the unfortunates initiated into the hellhole of child loss, you may be wondering\u2014Why torture yourself like that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Strange as it seems, I never want to forget the rawness of the pain of loss. If I can recall how my worst times felt, I can listen, understand, and be of comfort to someone else. A good cry is not to be feared. In being a living human, there\u2019s a spectrum of emotions to be experienced. I write and talk a lot about finding joy, however this is only one part of the human experience. I want it all. I need to cry. I need to dare to love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Love makes you happy, and love makes you sad. Grief and pain are simply the residue of your love when the joyful times seem like eons away. Often, I want to hug my grief the way I want to hug and hang onto my daughter who died. Tears are tangible remains of what I have left of her now. My love pours out, and I love those tears.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cYou\u2019re happy,\u201d a friend pointed out to me recently. And I immediately felt guilty, as in\u2014I lost my daughter, I\u2019m not supposed to feel happy. This simply is not right. We are human. We can experience it all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Jolly Reds, pinks, hot lime and deep greens bloom on the Magic Carpet Spirea plant in my garden. Like multi-colored teardrops. Tears of joy and sorrow. They blossom together.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes I just need a good cry. Preferably at the movies where I can recover easily, I might have said in the past. But a good cry should not be feared. And an opportunity to do some serious sobbing came up the other evening when a small group of bereaved parents had baked a cake, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1758],"tags":[1924,1767,1923],"class_list":["post-2494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1758","tag-sometimes-i-just-need-a-good-cry","tag-tears-of-joy","tag-tears-of-sorrow"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}