It is unclear whether she was serious. But a friend told me the title of the book she wants to write. 

"I Forgot to be Sad"

It caught my curiosity. What are the implications of that observation? What hijacked the empty space? 

I noticed with chagrin that when my young children were being rowdy, and got hurt, I felt mad. Here they were in my lap crying, and instead of empathy, I was annoyed. Why was that? When my teenage sons cracked open with grief, my heart flooded to them like a split dam. 

Benjamin seemed to skip over the sad option for most of his childhood. He either buried it or pivoted to anger. More recently, he has allowed himself the latitude for grief. 

Recently, a grown man expressed his reaction to events that he could not control.

"I'm sad."

I was surprised by how appropriate it seemed. Things were ending that he cared about. Yet rather than slapping a veneer of anger over it, or blame, he sat with the loss. I wanted to sit with him, which is not always my response when someone erupts with fury. 

There are reams of songs that are written from and about sadness, and I recall playing some of them on repeat in college. Probably my roommate rolled her eyes.

I have a fuzzy memory of how my father reacted when I was misbehaving. He cried. Gradually, I figured out that they were crocodile tears, and yet there was still something tender happening. He knew me well enough to see that arguing with my brother could easily be derailed by loyalty to my father. I love that he knew that.