When I go to write a blog, it’s often inspired by something that is happening with Hope, or something I’ve personally been going through. Other times, it comes from conversations I have and many of those conversations aren’t about us or Hope, but they make me think. This is one of those. I actually ummed and ahhed a little about the title. I wasn’t sure whether to call it ‘The Sadness in the Joy’ or ‘The Joy in the Sadness’. Honestly, it works both ways.

I was talking with someone the other day who had been waiting on answers. For months, they had been going through a large number of processes in order to get answers so they could move on and get some assistance to help their child. They finally got the call, to confirm what they had expected, and they said they were both happy and sad. Happy because they finally received the answer. They could finally get the help that their child needed. But sad, because their fears were confirmed. Sad, because they knew that there was a difficult road ahead.

I think about how I feel when Hope achieves something, or when we get a call to say we can get something that we’d been waiting on. It’s the same thing. We have both those feelings of happiness and sadness. We celebrate all the small successes, more than we would with our boys. There’s a song and dance every time Hope does a wee on the toilet, (yes, we did this with the boys, but it was not to the same level). We celebrate every single tiny new thing she does. We love these moments, they are joyful moments, but behind the joy, there is a sense of sadness. Sadness because we know how much effort it has taken to reach those moments. Sadness because we know that sometimes she will get something one day and it’s gone the next, and we won’t see it again for a few weeks or even months. Sadness because we know that no matter how much we celebrate all of the little things, Hope still has a long way to go and some of it is going to come with struggles.

So how do we deal with it, how do we not let the sadness take over? We don’t focus on it. We focus on the positive. We focus on the joy. I think it’s just the best way to look at everything in life. There are times when we can’t find the joy, and that’s ok. We need to just be sad at times. A good cry is sometimes just what we need! But when we can find the joy, then that’s what we will do. We look forward to what’s coming and focusing on the positive helps us to keep going.