My experience with both my parents is that grief has a lot of down sad things but I was also really emotionally raw in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely my relationships were hotter and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.