---
title: Finding Joy in the Mourning
description: If the past year has taught us anything, it that there is always room for hope. Always. May we work hard each day to simply find ways to let light into each other’s lives as we help set each other free to pursue joy, even while we mourn. 
image: https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2020-2021%20Community/Joy%20and%20Mourning/AC922C20-879A-43C4-9201-371E8BA2D200.jpg
---

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## Finding Joy in the Mourning

Posted by [Scott Allenby](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/author/scott-allenby)

03/31/2021

As the spring sunshine warms campus and students migrate out of their dorms onto the pathways and fields around campus during this post-Spring Break quarantine, we are filled with hope for the term ahead. At the same time, our community processes the loss of a long-time community member to cancer last week and walks alongside another as she battles late stage cancer. Both far too young, both remarkable humans who have made this school a better place and touched the lives of countless students, colleagues, and friends over the past decades. We find ourselves, again, learning how to hold the contradictory emotions of joy and mourning with grace. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding School Covid-19](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2020-2021%20Community/Joy%20and%20Mourning/AC922C20-879A-43C4-9201-371E8BA2D200.jpg?width=4032&name=AC922C20-879A-43C4-9201-371E8BA2D200.jpg)

Some professions ask you to maintain separation between family life and “work”, but that is not a prerequisite for being a boarding school educator. Instead, we are at our best when we integrate our families into our work. Our students get to know our children, see us parent (both the good moments and not-so-good moments), observe us pursue our own passions, and witness first hand the hard work it takes to sustain a loving, supportive community. When there are moments of heartbreak, we illustrate to our students that grieving is a process to embrace, not one to shove in a box, compartmentalized from the rest of our being. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding School Covid-19](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2020-2021%20Community/Joy%20and%20Mourning/IMG_4320.jpeg?width=4032&name=IMG_4320.jpeg)

At a place like Proctor, students also get to see our joy. Just as the first blossoms of spring persist through a long winter, so too does our hope for the good in the world around us. When we pursue joy, through our work with our students, through time spent in nature, through the building and sustaining of relationships with those we love, our joy-seeking behavior has a compounding impact on our community. Given the love these two community members have for the natural world, the words of poet Wendell Berry’s [*The Peace of Wild Things*](https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-peace-of-wild-things/) resonate deeply as we continue to learn how to honor grief without compromising joy: 

*When despair for the world grows in me*

*and I wake in the night at the least sound*

*in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,*

*I go and lie down where the wood drake*

*rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.*

*I come into the peace of wild things*

*who do not tax their lives with forethought*

*of grief. I come into the presence of still water.*

*And I feel above me the day-blind stars*

*waiting with their light. For a time*

*I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.*

![Proctor Academy Boarding School Covid-19](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2020-2021%20Community/Joy%20and%20Mourning/576A4453.jpeg?width=6720&name=576A4453.jpeg)

As we look around campus and see our students soaking up time outside, time with each other, and a sense of normal during a year that has been so far from normal, we are reminded of the good, good work that lies ahead of us this spring. If the past year has taught us anything, it that there is always room for hope. Always. May we work hard each day to simply find ways to let light into each other’s lives as we help set each other free to pursue joy, even while we mourn. 

![Proctor Academy Boarding School Covid-19](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Pics/Community/2020-2021%20Community/Joy%20and%20Mourning/576A4429.jpeg?width=4480&name=576A4429.jpeg)

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- [September 2016 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/09)
- [August 2016 (7)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/08)
- [July 2016 (5)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/07)
- [June 2016 (11)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/06)
- [May 2016 (25)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/05)
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- [March 2016 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/03)
- [February 2016 (29)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/02)
- [January 2016 (18)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2016/01)
- [December 2015 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/12)
- [November 2015 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/11)
- [October 2015 (22)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/10)
- [September 2015 (13)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/09)
- [August 2015 (6)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/08)
- [July 2015 (7)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/07)
- [June 2015 (8)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/06)
- [May 2015 (27)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/05)
- [April 2015 (19)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/04)
- [March 2015 (14)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/03)
- [February 2015 (24)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/02)
- [January 2015 (21)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2015/01)
- [December 2014 (16)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/12)
- [November 2014 (18)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/11)
- [October 2014 (20)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/10)
- [September 2014 (17)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/09)
- [August 2014 (6)](https://blogs.proctoracademy.org/archive/2014/08)

see all

### Recent Stories

### Telling the Proctor story

[READ CHUCK'S CORNER AND ACADEMIC LENS BLOG ARCHIVES HERE](http://chuckscorner.proctoracademy.org/chucks_corner/index.html).

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Located in  Andover, NH,  Proctor Academy is a private coeducational day and boarding school for grades 9–12. Students benefit from a rigorous academic program, experiential off-campus programs, fine and performing arts, competitive athletics, and a wide selection of extracurricular activities.

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(603) 735-6000

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