Happiness --> Pain --> Happiness

My professor this term was talking about happiness and pain in our class yesterday. He related it to death, but it has a lot of other applications. His main point was that the pain we feel at the death of a loved one occurs because of the happiness and joy we’ve shared with the one who has passed. We are sad due to the lack of love we are unable to receive from them now. Only because we loved are we pained. If we didn’t love that person who died, it wouldn’t be painful.

I have applied it in a different context.

I went home over Memorial Day weekend expecting an energetic, reviving weekend free of responsibility, but I was sorely disappointed and pained. I wanted the weekend to be like a weekend when my family was all home, happy, full of life, and laughing. I couldn't, for the life of me, focus anywhere but myself. All I understood about that weekend was that I couldn't have fun because my family was either busy with their own responsibilities or was just really tired. The pain of what I thought was neglect came from two sources.

The first, my own self-centeredness. I couldn't see past the end of my nose. I couldn't see that my family was really really tired and just needed a break to breathe. They've got lots on their plates, just like I do. When I wanted fun, they wanted rest.

The second: my pain came from the happiness I'd experience with them in the past. My family is in a dramatic period of change right now with Dad's employment circumstances, Mom working, me and Laurel being college, Laurel working on her mission papers, Lydia starting to date, Georgia really starting to define herself, and Ruby growing into an intelligent little girl, nothing is the same like it was 2 or 3 years ago. It takes more effort to spend time together. It talks more effort to cross our paths when we're all in a good mood. This pain is exaggerated by the happiness we'd experienced together in the past.

That may make loving each other and laughing together sound pointless since it will only cause pain later, but the Lord has told us that our losses will be made up. I believe that as our pain is connected to the happiness we have experienced, our happiness in the post-mortal life will be connected to our pain in this life. That’s not to say the more pained we are now, the happier we’ll be later. I don’t know if that is so. A lot of this is just contemplative rambling and I have little to back it up, but it’s a thought.