It’s Okay to Feel Sad

On election night, my family of four positioned ourselves in front of the television. Bowls of chili, loaded with all the fixins’, perched precariously on our laps. 

Staring at the screen before us, we watched the night unfold. Although it came as no surprise, electoral votes from historically red states went to the Republican nominee. Commentary about each of the swing states vacillated as wildly as a pendulum dangling from the end of a pointer finger. Hope still hung in the air, the thrill of it something my ten- and twelve-year-old sons hoped to taste in full the next morning. 

I don’t have to tell you what happened the next morning, just as I need not spell out my preferred candidate for President of the United States. 

Because on Wednesday, a new feeling permeated the air. Instead of reaching up, it dropped down to the ground. Instead of filling us with the airy stuff of hoped-for possibility, it weighed us down with despondency.

“Did Kamala Harris win?” My older son called out as he ran down the stairs toward the bathroom. 

“No, buddy,” I replied. He didn’t say anything in return. 

When my younger son woke up a few minutes later, the scene repeated itself. 

“But, why?” he finally said. “How did this happen? What does this mean?” Bleary-eyed, he took to the old pew bench in the corner of the dining room. His shoulders slumped toward the ground, his head soon following suit. I wondered how many other people had assumed that same posture on that same worn bench.

Because for many of us, the new day greeted us with sadness. We couldn’t help but wear it on our shoulders and feel it in our hanging heads; instead of knowing what to say, some of us felt our mouths clam up in silence. 

When I drove the boys to school a little while later, a new conversation emerged.

“You know that it’s okay to feel sad, right?” I said to them. I had given myself the same instructions earlier that morning, before they squeaked out of bed: It’s okay to feel sad, I’d written on a sticky note. For those of us who sometimes have a tendency to gloss over pain and don a pair of rose-colored glasses, regardless of the gray, such a reminder is necessary. 

Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw one head nod and then another. 

“And it’s okay to tell people you feel sad too,” I added. “This morning doesn’t change anything about who we are. We are kind and we are brave. We tell the truth and we care for the people around us.” 

But for the murmured commentary playing on the radio in the background, the three of us didn’t have anything else to say. 

By the time I arrived home again, I wasn’t sure what to do or where to turn. I wish I could say I turned to a favorite passage of scripture or kneeled before the old pew bench to pray, but I didn’t. Instead, I started watching old videos of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. 

I wanted to remember what the kindly Presbyterian pastor had to say about the sad and scary things in life. Maybe a part of me wanted to remember some of the songs I sang as a child, when he gave preschool children everywhere a necessary kind of permission. 

It was then that Mr. Rogers sang this song to me again: 

            Sometimes people get sad,

            And they really do feel bad.

            But the very same people who are sad sometimes

            Are the very same people who are glad sometimes. 

            It’s funny, but it’s true, 

            It’s the same, isn’t it for me, isn’t it for you? 

As I sat there on the couch, I thought about how the cardiganed man was probably right. In months marked by wild rollercoasters of grief and joy, some of us felt decidedly bowled over by bewilderment and disbelief, rage and disappointment. 

Even though I didn’t sing that same song to my boys later that day, as we continued having conversations about the election, I reminded them that it was okay for all sorts of feelings, big and small, to surface. 

We practiced gentleness in the days that followed, giving sadness space and letting our bodies rest. We snuggled under blankets and watched Junior British Bake Off; we read a middle-grade novel out loud; we huddled around the table and ate a lot of bread and cheese. 

But mostly, we just tried to be grace to one another as we waited for the air to clear.