Lifting our Head up From our own Gaping Hole of Sadness, yes, Joy can Still be Found.

Sleep will not come to me tonight. A loved one shared this with me earlier this evening and it brought back this moment. A moment where I felt such despair and sadness, just as this sculpture depicts. The hole in this sculpture, it’s a huge void, it is the focal point of pure sadness. It is a big, gaping, hole of despair, where a beautiful heart once lived. What strikes deep emotion for me is there is not a broken heart, it is a huge, sad void.

I can’t tell this person who shared this with me, just “get over it” , I can’t feel all the pain they are feeling, but I can still love them and not dismiss their sadness. And one thing I can do is remember. I can remember this moment, where I sat in the church, not at my daughter’s baby dedication, but instead, at her funeral. I looked at her little casket and vowed I would keep this gaping hole of sadness forever, and protect my heart, so it would never feel again. Much like this sculpture, I wanted to keep my head down, and not look for any opportunity for joy or happiness.

I look at this sculpture and replace it with me. I can’t lie, this made me cry. The defeated shoulders, the huge gaping hole, and the head down. This was my own head cast down and focusing on my sadness. And then I remember. I remember how one day not too long after I lost Annabelle, I took a meal to this family that had lost a baby. I didn’t even know them. And something happened. This gaping hole, it became smaller. It wasn’t magic, but I had this small moment, where I felt such love and empathy for these other humans. It was this connection to someone else’s heart that had went thru the same pain as me. And the hole of despair and sadness was no match for the healing that started.

So, can I relate to every person whose sadness destroys the heart and leaves this gaping hole? The answer is no. But I have purposed, to remember my pain, to use that remembrance to purpose to share joy with others. I desire to lift my head up from looking at my own gaping hole of sadness. It seems so simple but sometimes the hard thing, is simply….lifting my head up. Sometimes, I have felt too weary. Sometimes, yes, I have even felt too angry for the burden cast on me.

I am not this super human. I’m just me, a normal person with pain, hurts, sadness, and Joy. And I have no special antidote for Joy. All I can tell you is there are times when lifting your head up to other’s pain can somehow fill this gaping hole of despair and sadness in your own life. I have been more real with people about my pain, in just the last 3 years, than I have in my entire life. I looked up. I took my eyes off of my own gaping hole of sadness and filled it with joy helping others, until my heart found its place once again. Do I still cry for Annabelle? Well, sure. Do I cry for my fairytale, I once dreamed of that ended way differently than any “happily ever after” storybook ending? Of course. But still, my head, I lift it up, and look for those joy moments that spread and fill my gaping hole of sadness.

I am thankful for my friend sharing this sculpture with me so I could see it as a painful representation of him and his sadness. It gives me new purpose to not only encourage him but to help others fill their gaping hole of sadness with joy. I can look for these people. People need me, and people need you, too. Be the one that fills the hole, not make it bigger.

And this following quote is perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.