How to Hold Grief and Gratitude at the Same Time
Explore how grief and gratitude can coexist in the Black experience, revealing the healing power of embracing both pain and thankfulness in everyday life. We discuss it here!
Photo Credit: AaronAmat via iStockPhoto.com
By: Jamila Gomez
Grief and gratitude seem like emotional opposites. One cracks you open. The other grounds you. One is heavy, hard, and hollow. The other feels light, warm, and full. But the truth is, they often show up together — especially in the Black community, where we’ve had to become experts in holding contradictions.
We laugh at funerals. We sing through sorrow. We keep going, even when our hearts are breaking.
Grief and gratitude don’t cancel each other out — they exist side by side in the same breath.
Maybe you’re mourning a loved one but grateful you got to know them at all.
Maybe you’re grieving a version of yourself you had to let go of, while still being thankful for how far you’ve come.
Maybe life feels unfair right now, and yet you still find yourself smiling at the sky, or saying “thank you” in the quiet.
This is what it means to be human — to be Black — to be alive in a world that doesn’t always make sense but still holds moments of softness.
The trick isn’t choosing between grief and gratitude. The real healing starts when you give yourself permission to feel both — without guilt.
You’re allowed to cry and still appreciate the love that was real.
You’re allowed to miss someone deeply and still move forward with joy.
You’re allowed to say, “This hurts” and also say, “I’m thankful for what it gave me.”
In our culture, we’re often taught to be either broken or blessed. But we’re both. We’re layered. We carry sorrow in one hand and survival in the other.
So how do you hold them both?
Start small.
Say thank you for the little things, even on the hard days.
Make space to honor your grief — not fix it, not rush it, just witness it.
And when joy shows up — in laughter, in food, in sunlight on your skin — let it in. Don’t push it away just because you’re still hurting.
There is no right way to grieve. There is no perfect time to feel grateful. There is only the truth of what you’re holding right now — and the courage to hold it with care.
You don’t have to be all healed to be thankful.
You don’t have to be joyful every day to honor your blessings.
You are allowed to be both hurting and healing — grieving and grateful.
Both can be true. And both can lead you home.
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