A few weeks ago, in my “one year ago today,” I rediscovered a video from last March of my friend Sam trying and failing to lure over some ducks at Spring Park with snacks. And when someone asks about the best day of my life so far, I think a lot about that day.

Nothing happened. There were no extraordinary or particularly memorable circumstances or events. In fact, I barely recall any details of the conversations we had or the things we did. I think maybe we had Slim Chickens for lunch, spent a few hours at the park, and decided to go to a play that night.

But what I do remember unmistakably was how I felt. Despite the mundane circumstances, that afternoon in Tuscumbia I was graced by a sense of peace and gentle optimism that had not touched me in years.

Like a lot of people reading this, I know well the way grief slips in through the back door, and catches you wherever it pleases-

In the shower, its scent bottled inside of an empty body wash you won’t throw away

In a sunny parking lot, surrounded by friends

In the pews, wondering if anyone around you can feel it lingering behind you

At a party, flushed and laughing

Hanging in your closet, unwashed and untouched 

But that one day of unprompted, unplanned peace became proof of something much more valuable to me: the knowledge that even though grief may find you anywhere at any time, so can joy.

And joy finds you with a bird in its mouth

Joy nudges at the curtain in your open window, and leaks in

Joy waits patiently outside the door until you’re ready to speak,

Joy finds you in the way the light finds your skin at a concert – 

Don’t you see how it bends to you? How it wraps around the curve of you?

There’s a quote from a novel by Toni Morrison that says “anything dead coming back to life hurts.” And she’s right, not only do you sometimes need to confront some nasty things to get past them, but to step back into yourself hurts. It stings to defrost, and it aches to unfold. It burns to stretch and reach towards anything or anyone. Because loneliness, like grief, has a way of saturating you. It seeps into your emptiness and hardens, leaving no vacancy for anything else. 

But love is a good solvent. It works slowly, and reaches into the spaces you wouldn’t have it go first. It dissolves and undoes. 

Love finds you in the bread the woman at church made for your birthday.  

Love pulls over to call an ambulance, and presses a wet napkin to your forehead while it prays for you.

Love brings you sunflower seeds from the gas station.

Love lets you have a sip of its Diet Coke. 

All of these things work together to sustain you, and give you the strength to soften. So yes, while pain is good at showing up unpredicted and uninvited, so is joy, so is love, so is goodness.