Smiley Saturday
To be honest, smiling this morning isn’t coming easy. It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks for me. I think at times I perhaps care too much. It hasn’t been just the funeral that has put a strain on my emotional energy this week.
Nonetheless, I do feel that at times when we’re feeling like this, Smiley Saturday can be even MORE important. It’s okay to feel sad. I’m not saying we HAVE to be happy all of the time. At the same time, even amidst the sadness, there are glimpses of happiness.
Take the funeral for instance. There were a LOT of tears. But amidst the tears were also a lot of smiles. A celebration of the life of a person who really made a difference for having lived. Someone who cared a LOT for people and made those around her feel welcome and cared for constantly.
It was a wonderful time for catching up with people I haven’t seen in a long time and that made me smile. I also noticed that the family had a lot of fun and laughs together, in between the tears.
I came home to a lovely parcel from Kate. Thank you Kate. Right now I seem to have misplaced my camera but I will post photo’s when I locate it. It was just the tonic I needed after a few days away. 
Here are some links to posts on the Smiley Saturday Swap. There are several people I’m yet to hear from. If you haven’t been in contact with me about your swap parcel being sent/received (or not received), could you please do so.
Think Pink (Lightening’s Gift to Kate)
Wordless Wednesday of Sorts (Trish’s Gift To Jeanie)
Lightening’s Smiley Saturday Swap (Lightening’s Gift to Ann)
If you have posted about your Smiley Saturday Swap parcel, could you please send me the link to your post so I can include it here. If you don’t have a blog, please send me a picture or a description of what you received so it can also be included.
If you would like to participate in Smiley Saturday this week, please feel free to make use of the Mr Linky below to share your post with others. Sadly, I came home this week to find several people had linked to their blogs but I couldn’t find a Smiley Saturday post anywhere (one of the reasons I do ask that people link directly to their post and not simply to their blog). My apologies to those of you who clicked on links that appeared to be an abuse of the Mr Linky. I do my best to check that all links are valid. If you discover a link that appears not to lead to a Smiley Saturday post, please feel free to let me know.
I hope you’re all having a Smiley Saturday this week.
Similar Posts:
- Smiley Saturday: Time To Take Care of Ourselves
- Smiley Saturday
- Introducing…..Smiley Saturday
- Smiley Saturday
- It’s All a Matter of Perspective Really
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Very funny and true.
Glad to see you back.
I know what you mean. It can help sometimes to find smiley things through the sadness.
Much love, and look after yourself now !!!!
Thanks Widdle Shamrock. You have warmed my heart and made me smile this morning.
I think it is important to understand all of our emotions and not to disregard some because they are on the bluer end of the spectrum.
As it is only through scarring that new skin can grow, it is only through grieving that we can move forward with life when someone is no longer available to you in life.
I am sorry you have had a tough week - but I want to really thank you for your work to make others smile.
I will work on my smiling today (and try to find my own camera to maybe send a smile to others).
I love what you said, Lightening, about tears being a good thing too. I kind of love tears. These days I rarely cry for myself - I’m probably too old to have anything to cry about any more - I usually cry at happy endings. Like when Cathy Freeman won gold at the Sydney Olympics and the huge well of support and celebration she had from all Australians, and of course, more recently, the Sorry Speech; or the thankyou marches for the Vietnam Vets. And I love the tears when someone has died because they meant so much to us. I love to celebrate their life with such passion.
Of course, grief still hurts. It’s very hard to do without someone we really loved to have around. I hope you can rest and feel better soon.
I find it so uplifting when there are small smiles amidst the tears… I think that is a definite sign of a life well lived, your life and the life of those you are grieving for.
I am so glad that I made you smile just a little too
I hope at my funeral there are people smiling as they remember me
*hugs* to you
Thanks Lightening for the swap - it certainly created a lot of smiles. I am glad you are back too and that the funeral was a celebration of life and love.
I hope I linked it right this week
Take care of yourself, Jodi. Hope you can find some time to rest and relax and that life gets a little easier on you in the week ahead.
Sometimes these sad times are the perfect place to remember the things that made you smile about the person who has passed. I hope you have many good memories that will help you smile.
Thanks as always for the SmileySaturdays…. it’s a neat place to come and remember that life is actually good.
Take care
Welcome home. I find SS really keeps me focussed on the positives. It certainly can be difficult some days! It’s definitely worthwhile though. Why dwell on the negative?
I hope I wasn’t one of the naughty linkers! Apologies if I was.
I have been thinking of you and worrying about you all week. I’m glad you are home safe, and that you got to catch up with dear friends among tears and smiles, as is often the way at funerals.
I’m not expecting to see you tomorrow, so ((HUGS)) from me.
You will be smiling again soon, I’m sure one of the kids will do something smile worthy!
I’m so sorry that you have had such a horrible time of it lately. I am thinking of you. Glad that yuo found some things to smile about. You are such a positive amazing lady.
Babyamore and Tracey - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make anyone feel bad about their linking. :/ The problems last week were a couple of links by people who were possibly drive by traffic dropping their link in the hope it would get them some clicks. Or maybe they were new readers who didn’t realise you’re meant to actually post on the topic and link to that. The linking directly to your post is mostly for your own benefit (and to help any readers that come along later and want to find what you’ve posted) although it does help me to spot those misusing the linky so thankyou.
I totally understand how you feel as I am going through hell week in school now. A smile really makes things better and it is always great to have friends especially in the blogosphere, like you, to remind me.
Hope you have a great weekend!
Jodie,
I love Smiley Saturdays and reading everyone elses happy post, even if I don’t get around to posting myself. My sway partner and I are in contact and should have our parcels in each others hands later this week. I promise I will let you know when it happens 
Good to see you back
Lis
xx
I am glad you are back! Smiley Saturdays help me end on a good note for the week too!
Funerals are tough but as one poster said, tears are good and healing and help people remembering the loved one to bond and share the moment. I hope this next week will be better for you. May joy replace sadness and rainbows shine out from the rain!
Ohhh - and my post shows pictures of the swap. Do you need the pictures sent directly to you too? thanks for coordinating that!
[…] This always makes me smile. I was reminded how important thisis to me with 2 instances this week.Lighteningwho runs Smiley Saturday has a very thoughtful post about funerals “howthrough the tears there […]
Wishing you a happy week, I liked your comment about smiles through tears and have used it in my Saturday smiles
ooops! There’s a mistake in my linky…. didn’t pay attention when I cut and paste…Sorry!!
Kelly - if you want to you can re-enter your link and delete that one. I can’t seem to find a way to edit it so that may be the only solution.
I put in the right link but it came up as a second link and I can’t figure out how to delete the first one - sorry if I’ve stuffed it up this week. *Will do better next time*
Kelly, that’s fine. I’ve deleted the other one for you so people can find you. Everyone go find Kelly’s Smiley Saturday post after all her efforts okay?
I realised when I went to check things that my test link was still there too (I thought I’d deleted it) so we’re all having linky troubles this week. LOL.
Hugs Lightening and Glad you are all back home and safe. Your description of the funeral and the smiles amidst the tears really does portray how much your friend was respected, liked and loved. Tears also are good. I like Sarah and Hilary’s comments about tears.
Oh and by the way, if anyone goes to my blog to see the Smiley Saturday posts or the swap pics, the content warning page that pops up when going to my blog is just cause i swear a bit and also cause i talk about things i am studying, which apparently offended someone (anonymous complaint). I cant help that i am studying parts of the human anatomy, student nurses tend to do that lol and I talk about what I am doing, oh well cant please everyone, so I put that up there, if they click on accepting it, then they have no right to complain later.
Just hoping noone sees the adult content warning and assumes its got porn or other stuff on it, cause its all just over words describing what i was studying.