They were rushing. They needed to catch their flight. They had been up all night packing up her last things, deciding which clothes and possessions to take and which to leave for a future date. And the clock kept ticking; the plane wouldn't wait.

So she turned to me to give me a hasty, but heartfelt hug. It was only a week since my oldest daughter's wedding, but now she and her husband were off to begin their new life together.

With today's technology, New York is a mere stone's throw from our home in Toronto. But it was still a goodbye.

More than the physical distance, it was a conceptual parting—our little girl was now going off on her own, beginning her own household. The last many weeks and months of her and I working side-by-side to prepare for her beautiful wedding were now to be replaced by her and her wonderful life-partner working side-by-side to set up their new home and their new life together.

It was a beautiful moment, really. The two of them walking off together, with such confidence and resolve, to meet and undertake any and all challenges of their future.

It was the dream that every mother looks forward to, prays for and anxiously anticipates.

And yet…

I think both she and I inwardly resolved to be strong at that moment—not to allow the emotions within us to overcome us or in any way mar what we each knew should be, and indeed was, such a celebratory moment.

And yet…

"I'm not saying goodbye," she said hugging me tightly. "Because I'll be back so soon!"

We each smiled warmly. We both waved goodbye, our hearts overflowing with contentment.

And yet…

All good things come to an end, or so the saying goes.

But I think of it more as all good things have some bad mixed in, some tinge of sadness, harshness or negativity.

When I finger the tender cheek of my newborn baby in her first seconds of life, I feel miraculous awe. But as her physical and conceptual umbilical cord is clamped and cut, accompanying that euphoric joy is also the poignant realization that the baby that was one with me for so many months, who breathed with my every breath, whose heart snuggled in the protection of my own, is now a person, independent of me.

Accompanying the joy of witnessing this baby emerge into the world is also the real and harsh physical pains and contractions creating the very birthing process.

Watching my child go off to her first day of school is a mixed emotional bag of triumphant pride and nostalgic yearning.

As a dear friend survives a major surgery, I am filled with gratitude, but I am also reminded of her struggles ahead in recovery.

Inseparable from the satisfaction of creating a new work is the toil and exertion. Seeing its birth and implementation brings gratification, but also awakens the frustration of the newly emptied creative space awaiting to be filled once again—until the whole process repeats itself over again.

The Chassidic masters teach that ever since the first man and woman ate of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad," good and bad, joy and sorrow, euphoria and pain became intermingled in every aspect of our experience.

Ever since that day, there is no moment of joy that doesn't have some tinge of discomfort, difficulty or trials. And conversely, in every sad situation there can be found some kernel of hope or joy.

But there also is another reality.

Our sages tell us that had Adam and Eve waited until the advent of the Shabbat, the forbidden fruit would no longer have been forbidden to them. In the "Shabbat consciousness," rather than the good and bad being intertwined, the overpowering good erases and transforms any vestige of negativity.

We, too, await that cosmic Shabbat. That reality when our joy will become complete. And when any tinge of tears or pain will be erased from our face, heart and mind.