This season full of wonder, gratitude, and hope often tends to get overshadowed by the loss of someone very important who I loved deeply. I lost my dad unexpectedly 7 years ago around this time. Every time we reach the point in the year where Michael Buble’s Christmas album starts playing on the radio, it leaves me with the question: can gratitude and pain coexist?

Every experience with grief is unique and nuanced. These are some things I’ve learned as I’ve walked my journey. I hope they encourage you as you travel yours.

My husband, MJ, and I recently decided to focus on a word at the beginning of each month. We’ve never done that, but we wanted to preserve our ability to pause and focus on something during a season of toddler life that affords neither pausing nor focusing. He chose the word “personhood.”

Few experiences have altered my life more than that of losing my father. The sting of his death wrecked me. It did for many reasons but especially because his death felt like a fluke in the system.