A few weeks ago, I was delighted to attend a wedding shower for a beautiful young couple in love, counting down the days until they could solemnize their union. At the same event, I finally got to meet a precious miracle baby that has been a long time coming to her devoted parents. I was thrilled to celebrate these joyful relationships and life events with my loved ones, surrounded by family and friends. 

Less than 24 hours later, my children and I were circled together in a veterinary office bidding teary goodbyes to a beloved family pet, the compassionate veterinarian normalizing our grief.

That morning, snow had piled up outside while I was marking signs of our sweet cat’s painful decline. By late afternoon, however, most of the snow had melted off, and sunshine was slanting down on our sad group as we loaded into the car to go to the vet.  Backing out of the garage, I had stopped abruptly when my youngest daughter cried out. 

“Mom, look! The purple flowers are blooming.” 

Sure enough, there were the very first purple crocus blooms, right next to a patch of unmelted snow. 

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
Rumi, The Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi

Since then, I have pondered on the contrast of these events, a mashup of beginnings and endings, representing just one little microcosm of the circle of life. I almost can’t think of any words to describe the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, life and death, greetings and goodbyes, outside of a well-worn line of scripture: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). 

“Endings will give way to beginnings just as much as beginnings give way to endings.”
Susan Cain, Bittersweet

While I’ve been trying to focus on small ways to give the simple gift of nurturing life this month, I also want to recognize and normalize that budding relationships, dreams, businesses, and stages of life are often rooted in the soil of adversity, loss, adjusted expectations, and change. Every spring follows a winter. 

Holy Week encompasses all of these oppositions on the grandest scale, from the depths of despair to the heights of hope and joy.  For me, there is incredible hope and peace to be found in Jesus Christ’s triumph.  It reminds me that, no matter how long and dark the days may be, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Psalm 30:5