Mourning is a Season of the Divine by Madison Jackson

If mourning truly had an expiration date, then wouldn’t our memories have one too? We often rush the uncomfortable moments in our lives because we assume pain prevents us from living. In doing so, we begin to treat happiness as the emotional state we are meant to preserve. Yet happiness, like grief, has its own season. It comes and goes, but our memories always stay. In fact, if we truly lived in a permanent state of one emotion then a loss would lose its significance, and our memories would not hold so much power over our emotions.

Judaism understands this paradox well. Rather than treating mourning as something to overcome, Judaism understands mourning as a practice for which the living honor the dead. As Tisha B’Av approaches, the Jewish calendar invites participants into collective grief, by refraining from life’s pleasures, including intimacy and celebration. Then six days later, Tu B’Av marks a season of love and renewal. The transition from Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av reflects the impermanence of human emotion, as grief and joy come and go, but our memories stay. This vision of life is expressed in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. There is “a time for being born and a time for dying” (Ecclesiastes 3:2), as well as “a time to weep and a time to laugh” Ecclesiastes 3:4. While Lamentations is traditionally read on Tisha B’Av, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 complements a new perspective on mourning, as mourning is a process that occurs throughout the year, not just on particular days.

If human existence consisted only of comfort, comfort would cease to be something consciously recognized and instead become the baseline of our existence. Without ever experiencing sorrow, anger, fear, or discomfort, we have no point of comparison allowing us to recognize comfort as comfort. Similarly, our emotions become meaningful because they exist in relation to one another; so, to understand joy, one must have known grief. This relation between emotions is evident in mourning, as the relationships we form with those who enter our lives shape the emotions we experience when they are altered or lost. Ecclesiastes highlights this truth through Solomon’s fourteen pairs of opposing feelings that truly capture what it means to be human. Mourning can sound like weeping and wailing, and dancing and laughing. The paradox of grief is that it refuses to confine us to a single emotion. We cry because we have loved, laugh because we remember, and often experience both in that very moment.

Solomon’s fourteen pairings in Ecclesiastes highlight the simultaneous occurrence of contradicting emotions, suggesting that the fullness of human life is found in embracing both.

The verse reads:

A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Mourning becomes the season in which this paradox is most fully experienced, as memory holds space for these contradicting emotions while inviting us to reflect on the connections and the love that was once experienced and has now been lost. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is “a time to keep and a time to throw away” (3:6), as mourning becomes a time to identify what is worth carrying into the next season of life, and what must be gradually released. There is “a time to be silent and a time to speak” (3:7). As memories surface, words often fail to adequately express them, leaving one feeling unsettled as what once felt certain, no longer seems sufficient. This causes disruption, which often dysregulates the nervous system, making tears, laughter, or both natural responses to grief, “a time to weep and a time to laugh” (3:4).

Laughing and crying occur outside of mourning, as both have accompanied us since the day we were born. A baby is brought into this world by being forced out of the only home they ever knew, proving our lives were marked to experience discomfort since day one. We are taught that if a baby isn’t crying after birth, then there is a problem, and we should be worried. Yet as we grow older, crying is taught to be suppressed, as though tears signal weakness rather than humanity. But crying does not signify weakness (or some such). Crying is the rawest response one can have. Before one is capable of language, crying is understood as a signal that one’s basic needs such as hunger or safety are not being met. Perhaps this is what Ecclesiastes means when it speaks of  “a time to weep” (3:4). Weeping is not a failure to cope with loss, but one of the most fundamental ways human beings respond to it.

There is a time for all emotions, and there is beauty in recognizing that each has its place. Our bodies recognize our emotions before our brains can make sense of our feelings. So, when a loss occurs sometimes tears become the body’s way of expressing what words cannot. Yet tears are rarely the only response to grief. Laughter often neighbors mourning as our memories remind us of the love, joy, and connection that made the loss so significant. Mourning is not confined to sorrow alone, but it becomes a place where contradictory emotions coexist. Solomon’s fourteen pairings hold space for it all.

Throughout our lives, mourning will come and go, as there will always be reminders of the people we have loved, seasons of our lives that have ended, and even be versions of ourselves that no longer served us for who we are becoming. Memory is not always straightforward, and we often romanticize people, places, or periods of our lives, because they once provided us with comfort or helped us survive. Mourning invites us to honor those memories without allowing them to prevent us from embracing what comes next. Ecclesiastes reminds us that grief has no expiration date as it is cyclical, and perhaps the only true timeline we may experience is under heaven. As Tisha B’Av approaches, remember that mourning does not mark the end of life, but the transition into another season.

Bio

Madison Jackson recently graduated from Fordham University in New York City with a Bachelors of Science in Psychology. She is currently living and working in Boston, Massachusetts as a Marketing specialist at Skyeburst Wealth Management. Madison came to FAR to expand upon scripture she studied during her senior year at Fordham. She has a captivating TikTok account that you can follow @citylifefashion.