I am grateful for the intensity of days. The power of the joys and sorrows of my recent days. A more complete explanation included below. via /r/gratitude

This week has been full of joys and sorrows. Strong on both ends and it feels like such a powerful time for learning and balance.

This week I learned I’m going to be a grandfather, something I’ve longed to be. A great joy. Yet my oldest son-who is the dad-have been estranged for years. I may never meet my first grandchild. A great sorrow. Yet, he’s reached out to his younger siblings who still live at home about it and wants them involved so maybe there is hope. A great joy.

My oldest daughter just turned 18 and graduated high school. She’s headed to a bachelors/masters university program this fall. We spent yesterday morning kayaking together. She loves her dad. A great joy.

Yesterday, after kayaking we discovered my teen son’s beloved cat was acting very ill. He’s had this cat for 12 years since she was a kitten and he was a wild three year old. They grew up together and my son was always her person. We rushed her to the emergency vet hospital where we had to make the decision to euthanize her. My son was with me and his beloved cat. He held her as she passed and then held her more than an hour after. He was my big, weight-lifting, 6’2”, 196lbs, varsity wrestler son sobbing and cradling his best animal friend. Such sorrow. It brought me to tears even more for his grief than for the cat herself, I think. Yet, I was grateful he’d had that love his whole life and that even as a young man now he could cry and feel such love for his cat. A underlying sense of joy for that.

So much up and down and of such intensity this week. It hurts and it’s wonderful and I am grateful for how alive it makes me feel. I am grateful I can weather all of it.