My dad was the outdoors writer for the Dallas Morning News for almost three decades. As a child, we spent a lot of time outside with him. We picked flowers and went fishing, we watched birds and went for long walks.

My dad was one of my favorite people in the world.

He worked hard, he took good care of himself and ran every day, he loved his family and his friends and his job. He taught my brother and me about finding God in nature and to appreciate the beauty in the ordinary.

When he was diagnosed with a rare form of incurable lymphoma in 2010, I was angry and sick with worry. He was the person in my life that always seemed so invincible. He was a person that, time after time, did the right and honorable thing.

How could something like this happen to someone so good?

Where was God in the midst of this thing that seemed so unjust?

My dad noticed that I wasn’t doing well after hearing his prognosis, and he wrote me an email that contained the following advice:

“I’m not worried about this and I don’t want you to worry either. After nearly 62 years, here are two things I’ve learned. (1.) Most of the things I worried about never happened. (2.) Worry doesn’t help—it just weakens your will by envisioning the worst possible scenario. The only thing I can control about what’s happening in my body is my attitude. I can see myself as dying or I can see myself as living. I choose to live and you should too.”

I recognized then that life isn’t about control or trying to avoid pain. That death and sickness are a part of everyone’s story. I could continue to drive myself crazy with the ‘why’ questions and the fear of the unknown and the worry, or I could follow my dad’s example and choose to live.

We spent the next eight years doing just that. Living.

We talked about everything, fished a lot, and loved each other well. I got to witness him becoming a grandfather and teaching my children the same beautiful lessons he taught me, and I was by his side during his final days in February of this year.

If you find yourself grieving the loss of someone or something important to you, I invite you to choose life today. To cry when you need to. To laugh when something’s funny. To do something for yourself that brings you joy. To connect with people in real and meaningful ways without fear or hesitation.

When I feel overwhelmed by grief at the loss of my dad, I sit on our back porch and listen to the birds. I go for a walk with my kids, or I talk to my friends or my small group about how I’m feeling. I spend time with my mom and my brother and we share good memories of the man that means so much to us.

It helps me to know that God is in the midst. That the human heart has the capacity to hold both grief and joy at the same time. That though my dad is no longer here in a physical sense, I still see him and feel his presence in every bird and every lovely wildflower.

If you or someone you love is hurting, it can be easy to focus on how life isn’t turning out the way you wanted. And if that’s the case for you, please know that I am so sorry.

But friends, it isn’t helpful to do that.

What has been profoundly helpful to me is to celebrate the small things, to look for the beauty in the moments that are good and hard, to talk with someone who understands loss and who has chosen to still look for the goodness of God in others and in themselves.

In honor of my dad’s 70th birthday in July my family is going to one of his friend's ranches. We will fish and laugh and cry and remember a man that chose to live every single day with hope and with kindness and with joy.

We will celebrate. We will mourn. We will live.