01/05/2026
This Saturday Jan 10 from 1-3 pm. Loss of a Spouse a GriefShare presentation. Register at GriefShare.org/event. Cost is $10 or scholarship. A place to share your tears and fears. Safe and healthy
I’ll be honest, after my spouse died, the idea of ever feeling happy again seemed completely foreign.
I mean, how could I possibly laugh or smile when the person I loved most in the world was gone? It felt like happiness belonged to another version of me, one that didn’t understand what real heartbreak was.
And when I did start to feel little flickers of happiness creep in, my mind went straight to guilt.
Like I’d betrayed my grief, or worse, betrayed my spouse.
There’s this strange, unspoken rule we invent for ourselves in grief: “If I’m not sad, I’m not loyal.” As if every smile means I’ve somehow stopped missing them.
Here’s the thing…it doesn’t.
Then one day, something unexpected happened. I laughed. A real laugh. And the first thing I thought was, “Oh, great. The grief police are probably on their way. Sirens blaring. I’m about to be arrested for being happy!”
But then I realized what I was laughing at was the exact kind of thing that would have made my spouse laugh too. That’s when it hit me that it wasn’t wrong to be happy. It wasn’t disrespectful.
In fact, it was completely right. That laugh felt like a little thread connecting me to the love we shared, a love that was always full of humor, joy, and light.
I think that’s when I knew it was okay to be happy again. Not just for me, but for us.
Because if the situation were reversed, if I had been the one who died first, there’s no way I’d want the person I love spending the rest of their life drowning in sadness. I’d want them to laugh, to live, to find joy in small moments again.
Because love doesn’t disappear when life changes…it just finds new ways to exist.
I know now that I don’t have to feel guilty for smiling, for enjoying a day, for laughing at something stupid. None of that means I’m betraying my grief. And I’m definitely not betraying the person I love and lost.
If anything…I’m honoring the fullness of our love. Because I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that grief and happiness can live side by side.
And when you think about it…maybe that’s the most faithful way to honor the person you’ve lost, by continuing to live the kind of life you both would have laughed about together.
Gary Sturgis – Surviving Grief
