We live in a world that seems obsessed with happiness. Everywhere we turn, someone is telling us to think positively, choose happiness, focus on gratitude, and eliminate negativity from our lives. We’re constantly encouraged to improve our moods, change our perspectives, and avoid anything that might make us feel sad. While there’s certainly value in cultivating a positive outlook, I’ve come to believe that our obsession with happiness can prevent us from appreciating the full range of the human experience. Sometimes sadness isn’t something we need to overcome. Sometimes it’s something we need to embrace.
Recently, I was listening to Alex Warren’s beautiful song “Save You a Seat.” The song immediately made me think about my mother, who passed away in 2015, and my beloved dog Reyna, who passed away in 2025. As I listened, I felt a familiar sadness wash over me. I missed them both terribly. But here’s the interesting thing. I didn’t want to change the song, distract myself, or do something to improve my mood. I wanted to feel sad. I wanted to miss them. I wanted to sit with those emotions for a while. Not because I enjoy suffering or because I’m unhappy with my life. Quite the opposite. I wanted to experience those feelings because they reminded me of how much happiness these two beautiful beings brought into my life. And that led me to an important realization: Sometimes sadness is a form of happiness.
At first, that might sound contradictory. After all, how can sadness and happiness exist simultaneously? But when we think about losing someone we love, it makes perfect sense. We’re sad because someone brought us so much happiness. We miss their presence because their presence enriched our lives. We wish they were still here because life was better with them in it. The sadness reminds us of what we’ve lost, but within that sadness is the happiness of having been fortunate enough to experience their love and companionship in the first place.
When I think about my mother, I feel sadness that I can no longer talk to her or spend time with her. But I also feel gratitude for the years we shared and everything she brought into my life. When I think about Reyna, I miss her beautiful presence, but I also remember the countless wonderful experiences we had together. I wouldn’t trade those memories to avoid the pain of losing them. If I could somehow eliminate the sadness I feel today by never having experienced the happiness they brought me, I wouldn’t make that trade in a million years. The love was worth the loss.
The other day, I was listening to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and it immediately made me think about my father, who passed away in 2022. It was one of his favorite songs, and he played it all the time during our family camping trips. Now, I absolutely hate camping! Haha! But what I wouldn’t give to go on one of those trips again just to spend time with my father. I miss our conversations about life, hearing his perspective on things, and simply enjoying his company. That song takes me back to those experiences and the many conversations we shared over the years. I find myself listening to it often when I’m missing him. Sometimes it makes me smile, and sometimes it makes me sad. Usually, it’s a little of both. And that’s perfectly fine with me. I don’t listen because I miss camping. I listen because I miss my father, and for a few minutes, the music brings back the wonderful feeling of being with him again.
Those memories also remind me of something else I’ve come to appreciate: Sometimes we don’t realize how precious an ordinary moment is until the person who made it special is no longer with us. At the time, those camping trips were simply something my family did together. I certainly wasn’t thinking about how much I would cherish those memories decades later. But looking back, the camping itself was never what mattered. What mattered was spending time with my father. And now, a familiar song can transport me back to those moments almost instantly.
Unfortunately, I think many people have developed an unhealthy relationship with sadness. We’ve been conditioned to believe that happiness is a choice and that if we’re feeling sad, we’re somehow failing to maintain the proper mindset. I disagree. Grief isn’t a failure to think positively. Sadness isn’t a character flaw. And missing someone we love isn’t evidence that we’re failing to move forward with our lives.
Grief and loss are fundamental parts of the human experience. Anyone who has loved deeply will eventually experience the pain of separation, whether through death or some other form of loss. We can’t experience meaningful relationships without accepting that vulnerability. Yet rather than allowing ourselves to experience grief, we often try to escape it. We distract ourselves with work, entertainment, social media, or anything else that temporarily takes our minds off what we’re feeling. Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we’re doing well because we’re staying busy and not thinking about our loss.
But continually suppressing grief doesn’t necessarily make it disappear. It can simply postpone the opportunity to acknowledge and work through what we’re experiencing. That doesn’t mean we need to immerse ourselves in sadness every waking moment. Taking breaks from grief, enjoying life, laughing with friends, and engaging in activities we love are all healthy and important. The distinction is between giving ourselves a break from sadness and believing we should never feel sadness at all. We don’t have to be happy all the time to have a happy and meaningful life.
I also think we misunderstand what it means to move on after losing someone. People often talk about getting over a loss as though grief is a problem that eventually needs to be solved. We imagine that with enough time, the sadness will disappear and we’ll return to the people we were before. But I’m not sure that’s how love and loss work. My mother has been gone for more than a decade, my father passed away in 2022, and Reyna is no longer physically here. Yet my love for all three hasn’t diminished. I don’t expect those feelings to disappear completely, nor do I particularly want them to.
They were important parts of my life. Their absence matters because their presence mattered. Grief isn’t always something we need to get past. Sometimes it’s something we want to revisit because the person or animal we miss was worth loving that deeply. That doesn’t mean living in the past or allowing grief to consume our lives. It means recognizing that the relationships we form continue to influence us even after the individuals involved are gone. We learn to carry those relationships differently.
I still have a wonderful life filled with experiences that bring me happiness. I love spending time with my dogs Rumi and Derby, hiking through nature, listening to music, going to concerts, training, and taking shelter dogs out for afternoon adventures. I laugh, have fun, look forward to new experiences, and find plenty of reasons to appreciate being alive. And sometimes I listen to a song that reminds me of my mother, father, or Reyna, and I cry. Those experiences aren’t contradictory. Being happy today doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten those I’ve lost. And feeling sad about their absence doesn’t mean I’m unhappy with the life I have now. We can be grateful for what we have while still missing what we’ve lost.
Perhaps one of the most liberating things we can do is stop judging our emotions as inherently good or bad. Happiness feels wonderful, but sadness also has a place in our lives. It can remind us of what matters, deepen our appreciation for meaningful relationships, and connect us to memories we never want to forget. We don’t always need to analyze our sadness, fix it, or transform it into something positive. Sometimes we simply need to allow ourselves to feel it.
If a song makes you think about someone you love and brings tears to your eyes, perhaps you don’t need to change the song. Maybe you want to listen a little longer. If an old photograph brings back memories that make you both smile and cry, there’s nothing wrong with allowing both emotions to exist. And if you occasionally find yourself wanting to spend a quiet moment missing someone, you don’t need to apologize for that feeling or rush to make it disappear. We don’t always want to feel better. Sometimes we simply want to remember.
There’s also something important about recognizing that grief isn’t a competition or a process with a fixed timeline. Some people experience profound sadness for years. Others find that their grief becomes less intense relatively quickly. Some cry frequently, while others rarely cry at all. Some find comfort in talking about their loved ones, while others prefer private reflection. There isn’t one correct way to grieve. What matters is allowing ourselves the freedom to experience our emotions without believing that we’re somehow doing life incorrectly because we aren’t positive all the time.
I’ve come to believe that emotional strength isn’t about avoiding sadness. It’s about developing the capacity to experience difficult emotions without being afraid of them. We can acknowledge pain without allowing it to define our entire existence. We can feel grief without losing our appreciation for life. And we can accept that certain losses will always matter without viewing that as a personal failure.
In fact, I think the desire to eliminate grief entirely misses something important. Why would I want to erase every trace of sadness connected to someone who brought me so much happiness? I don’t want to forget how much my mother and father meant to me. I don’t want Reyna to become a distant memory that no longer stirs any emotion. I want to remember them. I want to appreciate the time we had together. And if remembering sometimes makes me sad, I’m perfectly comfortable with that. I don’t want to get over loving someone. I want to learn how to carry that love, even when it hurts.
Ultimately, I don’t believe the goal of life should be to eliminate sadness or maintain a constant state of happiness. A meaningful life involves love, joy, excitement, gratitude, disappointment, heartbreak, grief, and everything in between. Trying to experience only the pleasant emotions means rejecting an important part of what makes us human.
And sometimes, when we allow ourselves to experience sadness without resistance, we discover something unexpected beneath it. Gratitude. Gratitude that we had the opportunity to know someone extraordinary. Gratitude for the memories we created. Gratitude for the affection, companionship, laughter, and love that made the relationship so meaningful. We’re sad because those experiences are over, but we’re also happy that they happened. Sometimes sadness is simply happiness remembering someone who is no longer here.
And perhaps that’s why I occasionally choose to listen to a song that I know will make me cry. I’m not trying to escape the life I have today. I’m taking a moment to appreciate the beautiful lives that have touched mine. If the price of loving someone deeply is occasionally feeling the pain of missing them, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
Because the love was worth it. Every single moment of it.
