i am more than comfortable doing things alone; i've eaten at restaurants alone (what up table for one?!), go for walks alone, and occasionally, a movie alone (mainly because i don't have to share my popcorn that way), but i hate walking in and out of church alone. i don't know what it is, either. maybe it's because it's the one day of the week where the fact that i don't have a family of my own gets unintentionally rubbed in my face, or maybe, just maybe, it's because being in church reminds me of the importance of community and leaving it by myself feels counter-cultural and wrong. i don't know. all i know is that this particular sunday, the day before the anniversary of my mom's death, was harder than the rest.

not wanting to go home quite yet, i stopped in at my favourite pizza joint, pizzaiolo, to get some lunch and cash in my gift card.

at first, i was okay; the cashier was especially friendly to me that day and i scored the window seat. i never score the window seat.

and so i sat at my preferred table and enjoyed my slice of heaven (no, really, you need to try 'the sonny'!) as i watched the beautiful, thick snowflakes fall on the other side of the window at majestic pace. it was picturesque, actually, and i felt overwhelmed with thankfulness.

but then i looked across the table from me only to see an empty seat, and all of a sudden, as dumb as this may sound, i was overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

i wanted to pick up the phone and call someone, but being sunday afternoon, i didn't know who to call. and so i did the next best thing when i need community; i looked to facebook.

"i eat alone and grieve alone", i wrote.

was it true? at that moment, yes. and as i ate my pizza - the pizza that i was grateful for - tears started streaming down my face.

and then a comment came in. truthfully, i don't remember what this person said word for word, but it was along the lines of "paula, you need to learn to be thankful for the small things in life."

was this person trying to be helpful? maybe. but was it helpful? absolutely not.

the truth is, as i have most recently learned, you can be thankful and sad at the same time. you can be thankful that you have good people in your life, food in your stomach and beautiful snow to watch fall from the sky and still be sad that you're eating alone or because you have an orphan sized hole in your heart that, at times, appears to be bigger than the organ itself.

the truth is, contrary to what my well-intentioned friend said, you can carry both.

as some of you know, yesterday marked what would have been my mom's 74th birthday and a few friends of mine had been kind enough to come over and celebrate 'mama linda/LC" with me. i whipped up a nice dinner and created a cake out of her favourite white donuts and as i went to sit down to say grace, i found myself welling up with tears caused by nothing but thankfulness. i was so touched that my friends wanted to celebrate my beautiful mother with me and felt comforted by their company.

before we lit the candles on her 'cake', i facetimed my youngest siblings so that we could continue the tradition we started last year by eating a few donuts together in honour of mom's life. i tell ya - i laughed harder than i have in a long time as i watched my siblings - in true castrucci fashion - rub white powder on their face in hopes to make one another laugh, and it worked. boy, did it ever work!

but then, a few hours later, my friends left and i found myself almost instantly ugly crying myself to sleep, because, well, you can carry both gratitude and sadness in your heart at the same time, and i do.