Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable

Tin Man, The Wizard of Oz

I’d hoped to keep my daily string of TJs unbroken this week, but after the funeral yesterday, I simply needed space to process with myself without the interruption of the internet.

Yesterday we met to say one last goodbye to K., at a lovely country church and graveside service. You might think that on a day involving a cemetery, there is no tiny joy to be found, but you’d be wrong. Those are the spaces where tiny joys abound, if only you seek them out above the pain and tears. I should know–I’m an expert at being around death, as I’ve been told.

Yesterday’s tiny joys were numerous between the tears and lingering heartache of a friend and beautiful soul gone far too soon: the love of friends that you feel, even when the only time you see each other through the years is at aforementioned funerals, the memories you’ve created in decades past that run through your mind and create sniffling, tear-stained and genuine laughter and appreciation for life that it seems only death can bring.

I once thought, as a child at a funeral, (I forget who, at this point), how silly it is that we wait to lavish praise and share memories of the deceased when they’re not there to hear these things and laugh with us. How good would it feel to have all of our silly and happy and beautiful moments shared with us–while we’re in the flesh–so we could feel the love through the memories, rather than waiting to have the words wash over us in eulogy? Of course, we can’t have a practice funeral, and of course you know I believe our souls are at our funeral, so in essence, we do get to hear those words. But hearing them while we’re still embodied might fill us with a joy that might give us a strength and connection back to love that would benefit us more in the human form than we realize.

Just thoughts, at this point, anyway. That’s K. in blue, taken in 2016. The angle makes her smile look much smaller than it really was–she filled the room and our hearts with that smile and her love.

The question is: where did you find your tiny joy yesterday? And where are you looking to find one today?