It’s okay to be sad. Don’t try to cheer yourself up. Oh, I know what experts tell us about sadness. Put cotton in your ears and feel sad anyway. Jesus wept. He didn’t have Afrin to clear his sinuses, either.

When I lost a child, I felt sad. That sentence is the perfect example of an understatement. You should giggle a little at this point. Sadness cannot be stamped out. I won’t go so far as to say it rocks, but I will say it is programmed into us. Otherwise, we would all be sociopaths.

I have a great sense of humor, but I still feel sad. Don’t try to cheer me up by sending a Hallmark card. I will knee you in a place that is delicate.

When I lost my husband I felt sad. That is also an understatement. I also felt mad and glad. Mad because this had happened again and glad because I was awfully, awfully tired of being a caregiver. I won’t lie. I still feel glad I can close my door at night and sleep undisturbed.

It’s okay to have mixed emotions. Things rock your world and not in a good way. You look around and see clearly that no one is coming to rescue you from yourself. That is the worst news of all. If that makes you feel sad, it’s okay.

I will end here before you get mad. But if you do, that’s okay, too.

Vicki Woodyard