Content Notice: Gun violence, Violence against children/minors, Death
Written by: January Serda, Chief Operating Officer
Joy is such a sweet word. It is defined as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness”. Joy often can be a feeling we do not have every day, especially if we have been through traumatic experiences. Or in my situation, suffered an unimaginable loss. For 17 years, I have primarily identified myself as a mother of two amazing sons. In December 2021, I lost one of my sons to gun violence. Only 17 years old, a week after his birthday, my beautiful boy was murdered at a local public high school after a varsity basketball game. Joy was ripped from my existence.
Parking lot at Newport News Public School, Menchville High School, where my 17-year-old son was shot and murdered on Dec 14, 2021, immediately following the boys’ varsity basketball game. This is the spot forever branded in my brain and heart where my son’s body was found that traumatic, cold, winter night.
Each day since, I have struggled with finding joy in the new, dark life I find myself navigating. How can I ever have “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness” when I am a grieving mother? How will I feel joy when I am alive and breathing, yet one of my children is gone from this Earth? Where is the joy when everyday we turn on the news, it’s a new story of another child shot and killed at school? Such evil and cruelty in the world that triggers my broken mamma heart and pulls me so deep in the darkness. Joy becomes only a memory of my past that feels so very far away. Living without joy starts to settle in.
But what is living if there is no joy? I have come to realize that is not living…that is only breathing. Without happiness in this life, I realized I am denying my heart light that wants to come in. I must find my joy again. I deserve happiness in my life. I cannot let my son’s killer take my life too. This was a realization that opened my heart to seek out my joy again. To try to find it. This sudden realization that if I stay in the dark place my heart and mind was in from the loss of my baby boy, I was giving his killer my life too.
I began to think back about how I radiated joy before losing my son. I took pride in being that annoying, happy, big smiles co-worker that was way too excited to be at work on a Monday morning. That person I was, so full of life and happiness, died with my son in December 2021. She’s someone I see in old pictures, but I don’t feel like anymore. Almost like an alter ego from lifetimes ago, and now I only talk about her as if it’s my clone. So how can I possibly find my joy again when I don’t even feel like the same person?
A quote by Mark Twain inspired my journey of healing, “The healthiest response to life is joy.” And my life, a messy, beautiful, tragic, lovely, triumphant journey, requires me to be healthy to persevere through it. No joy causes me sickness, depression, anxiety, hate, and self-harm. None of those are going to help me heal. None of that will bring my son back. All of it only leaves me in the darkness. I needed to decide, do I want to remain in this darkness? Because it really is that simple and that difficult at the same time. We choose. We are masters of our own mindset. We decide what to let in and what to let go. I choose joy.
Some ways I choose joy is:
Helping others – A life of service and serving others always brings me joy
Self-Care – I make time for the things I love and space for what feeds my soul
Music – There is simply nothing that infuses my spirit with happiness like my favorite jams
Gratitude – Mindfully give thanks and focus on what I do still have in my life
Sharing – I talk about my suffering and loss when I can in hopes it inspires others to choose joy
I hope you will choose joy with me.
Finding my joy one hike at a time. Every day is a challenge. Most days it is minute by minute just to get through my day, but I am choosing JOY.