Sadness is not a happiness deficiency.

I've been thinking about this quote from Matt Kahn - 

Sadness is not a happiness deficiency. It is how the heart adjusts to loss, and releases imagined patterns of attachment.

Every time sadness arises, the body has an emotional garage sale. It releases what is no longer needed  for the journey ahead and clears the space to welcome in what you entire life has prepared you to find - true happiness!

But every time I think about Robin.... and him not being here... and me doing it on my own, I feel sad. 

Over and over again....not sure I'm releasing anything.

Today I walk...and pick the apples off my tree - not many of them...and a bowl of the  ripe blackberries growing over the fence between me and the cows at the bottom of the garden.

Between the showers I start some gentle gardening....not wanting to overdo it with my back and my thumb....  deadheading the geraniums and the begonias in the front bed. Then I get carried away and cut and pull at brambles and bindweed in the borders. Silly - now everything hurts again.

 And I spend time on the computer ....back and forth with the architect trying to get the plans finalised ...trying to translate a tricky part of the design ...moving the pipes in the kitchen cupboard to make room for a larder...or not. But inching forward to the day when I can start calling builders for quotes.

So I don't think too much about the big empty Robin shaped space beside me at the table, like I did on Sunday...

and keep remembering  the true happiness of the longest sweetest hug from my little great-niece...

her arms tight round me...

which helps to soothe the big empty Robin shaped space in my heart.