The strange companionship of sorrow and joy

We put our dog Mack to sleep last Friday. It was time—but that didn’t make it easy.  I want to share the last lesson he taught me on sorrow and joy.  

Mack had been declining for a while. He once loved hiking, but in his final months, he would simply look at me with tired eyes and stay behind. I would go alone, carrying not just his sadness but my own.

Our relationship hadn’t started smoothly. As his third owner, it was obvious he learned to dislike men.  He kept his distance and growled if I came too close. But one day I coaxed—really, dragged—him into the car for a hike. Then another. By the third day, he was waiting at the door. From then on, we were inseparable.

During COVID, when the retreat center was empty, he became the unofficial assistant director, making his rounds to check on staff. When groups eventually returned, he often had to stay home. He would watch me dress in the morning, see the clerics (a sign that groups would be present), and quietly walk away, disappointed.

He even joined me for spiritual direction. I think he liked my “spiritual direction voice”—soft, low, slow. More than once, when someone shared something heavy, he would place his paws gently on their lap, as if to say, It’s going to be okay. 

He was the greatest four‑legged companion I’ve ever had.

In the days before his death, I felt the expected heaviness. But something else surfaced: a quiet, insidious voice of the enemy—the one that distorts. It took Mack’s decline and turned it toward me: You’re declining too. You’re not useful anymore. Look at your failures. Subtle, but real.

A few hours before going to the vet, I slipped into the church and laid all of this before the Lord—the tangible grief and the spiritual desolation. After some silence, another voice emerged: This will be hard. I am with you. Be grateful for the gift. I sat with that.

Walking back to the car, I felt both sadness and something unexpected—a supernatural joy, a grace that didn’t erase the sorrow but accompanied it.

This is one of the strange truths of the spiritual life: sadness and joy are not opposites. They often arrive together. As Henri Nouwen writes, “When our hearts mourn for the losses in our lives, our eyes may still see the beauty that surrounds us.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son)  And Saint Paul names it plainly: we can be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”  (2 Cor 6:10)

Two takeaways remain with me. First, it’s OK to let sadness and joy coexist. Second, don’t let sadness become an entry point for the enemy’s distortions. Sometimes, it’s in the heaviness where the joy quietly takes root.