Last week I disclosed that I was feeling sad. This week, I got more curious about this sadness, the 75% one I wrote about. This happened while I was sorting through our CD’s, one-pointedly looking for the only black jewel case and its insert featuring a mother and child portrait that looks like a wood carving. I thought it would be easy, because most Christmas CD’s are red and green. Surely it would stick out. I wanted to find this CD because it features choral music sung by Estonian singers, and every year we comment that it is the most beautiful music we’ve ever heard
Continuing my treasure hunt, I puzzled where had I heard about this CD. Did someone recommend it? It wasn’t long before this I remembered how my late Tai Chi teacher, Ruth Kneile, had introduced me to Estonian choral music. She had played a special CD from Estonia in class while we practiced the Yang 24 form.
Eventually I put my hands on the CD. I stopped sorting. I breathed deeply, missing Ruth. She had been the wisest, healthiest person I knew. I remembered my shock when I heard that she had died. How she believed in me and was confident that someday I would master the Tai Chi form.
This sadness was tinged with good memories. I knew she would encourage me to feel all the feelings as part of my movements, integrating them into a new way of being in the world. Remembering Ruth led me to sense how sadness can put me in contact with the preciousness of life.
Without warning, I flashed to one of the saddest moments of my life. While I was going through a divorce from a marriage of thirty-three years, and at the same time, my mother was dying. Standing vigil by her hospital bed with my siblings. When she stopped breathing and we knew her spirit was no longer trapped in her body, we were both relieved that she wasn’t suffering any longer but so sad she had departed from us as our real-life parent. Both types of feelings were intense. We had the sense then not to judge either feeling. We felt close to one another and life itself because we felt the overwhelming feelings that washed over us.
Feeling sad isn’t all bad I thought. Despite my sadness percentage not being down to zero, I had remembered two very special women in my life. Women who were no longer here with me physically. Women whose spirits would be more available to me when I slowed down and felt sadness. And then when the sadness lifted, I could feel the joy as I listened to the Estonian singers. There are benefits to feeling sadness I thought.
What benefits have you reaped from feeling sad?
IMAGE: Front of Holiday card received from “Your Friends at the Des Moines Symphony”
