My daughter received a marriage proposal that she has been anticipating all year.  Her boyfriend did it right.  He asked her father first, then carved a pumpkin with the words “will you marry me” and presented the ring in a tiny black casket. Creepy?  Not if you know my daughter; she wishes to be married on Halloween.

I met them at our favorite watering hole to make a toast to the happy couple and to call family and friends to let them know the good news.  It was a glorious, happy moment; a very sweet moment.

It was also a bitter moment. Her brother should have been the one to make the toast. He should have been the one to give her boyfriend the ‘big brother lecture’. He should have been the one to post on Instagram how happy he was for his lil’ sis. For grief warriors, sweet moments are tainted with a sad bitterness. I think this, feeling truly happy, is one of the hardest battles of grief to which victory may never come.

When you are grieving, happy times are complicated. You might feel guilty to feel something lighter than despair. You might feel anger that your loved one was robbed of this moment. You might feel jealousy that you can’t share with your loved one happy moments your friends share with theirs. True happy has become bleak.  And that just brings on more guilt.

How do we fight bittersweet?  How can we relish in the blessings that life brings to those we love here?  We can try to include our missed ones.  We can speak on their behalf; if they could talk what would they say about this moment? We could include a picture of them as part of the celebration.  We could give a gift that symbolizes our missed one. Actively bringing our missed ones to the celebration is a way to honor them and to emphasize they will always be connected to our current moments.

I believe that we also need extra self-care during happy moments for others.  It takes a lot of energy to join a celebration.  Give yourself some down time prior to and after to rest.  Let go of the guilt that feeling bitter brings. Remind yourself that, if grief and love are intertwined, then bittersweet is the emotion of the two.