An Unfortunate and Necessary Gift

Have you ever lost someone that was important to you? Someone critical and essential to life as you knew it?  What did you notice about the moment when that relationship was severed abruptly or maybe it dissolved slowly?  How did it impact you? How did you recover? Did you recover?  What is life like now that you've experienced that loss? What do you want life to be like now that you've experienced it?

I've had loss, but I’m not sure I deliberately chose recovery as much as I chose to live through it, because life goes on or the living just keep living, right?  I've become comfortable with loss to the point I expect it because it’s always lurking just around the corner.  As a well behaved self-fulfilling prophesy would do, I start to create the sense of loss at times, even if it doesn't exist. The crafty self-fulfilling snarky little voice whispers “Told you! I knew it was coming, always does. See!?!”  Crazy, I know. At least I then get to tell myself that I know how to handle the shock, the trauma and how to get back to “normal”.  This doesn't mean I’m prepared or that I don’t hurt terribly when I face a new or old loss, but it does mean I’ll pretend like I've got it all under control and I’m seemingly unaffected.  I've written about that before though, so if you happen to be a loyal reader, you’ll know what I mean about that wickedly powerful titanium shield of armor holding me together, right?! (She’s flexing her muscles as we speak… waiting for her strong facade to be noticed. Such a show off!)

Thing is, no one, myself included, ever really knows when it’s coming or how it’s going to hit us.  Sometimes it’s sudden without warning or notice and other times it is drawn out over a span of months or years and other times there’s not a clear stop or start to the loss but it’s where the connection just dissolve. This is when there’s no physical loss but rather distance between you and who or what you are losing, that too, is loss.  It’s always in our lives no matter how full, happy or alive we feel.  We will all face it, whether it is the loss of love, confidence, marriage, money, connection, security, hope, dreams… you name it, we could lose it. But that also means, we have to have it to lose it, which could be a gift no matter how long or short we have a hold to these treasures.

So, to lose, what does it mean?  Today, I believe loss is in one of life’s greatest, yet still painful, gifts. As gut wrenching as it is to admit, I've learned so much from loss. Don’t get me wrong though, by no means would I wish this terrible, tragic, and painful gift on anyone intentionally but I know we all need it. It’s life. It’s the human experience. It’s growth. It’s pain. It’s real and it is absolutely inevitable and unavoidable. Unless, however, you've decide to dedicate living your life in a dark hole of emotionless bliss... then, my friend, you’ll be free of this painful gift. I supposed we could congratulate you for such a triumphant commitment to protecting yourself from, um, living!? But, I won’t.  Yes it’s traumatic and an altering shift in our lives that really doesn't fully go away, but it teaches us, guides us and shapes the parts of us that are waiting to be defined by experiences.

Depending on the type of loss, it might not ever really stop but rather become a little more dull of a pain over time; or, we might see that it was the best gift ever granted to have a relationship with a significant other you thought you just couldn't live without abruptly ends and then years later you thank your lucky stars it did! Then there’s the example of this person you think you know, trust, believe, long for, hope for, depend on, expect to be there forever just disappears and sometimes without warning or reason.   Then one day we wake up and think… oh shit, what if I’d loved, dated, or God forbid, married THAT one!  So, you can see, there are some losses we will be undoubtedly grateful for.  See, that’s a gift!

If you can get your mind around the fact that we all exist for a purpose, for a reason, we’re in each others’ lives for however short or long that time might be but still for a reason.  This is one of my greatest notions and greatest fears…to not know if I could lose someone instantly without notice or reason.   I can’t do anything about it other than hope that I’d cherished the moments while I had the time and that I will find gratitude for the past, the present and hope for the future. These voids seem dark and empty, but I have began to see the small pearls of wisdom we all gain from having an experience that moves us at the depths of our soul. I am learning to be grateful for each moment, to appreciate what I have and what I don’t have, to not take the simple things for granted because one day it will be the very simplest thing you’ll want the most. The sound of a voice, the touch of someone’s hand, the knowing they are on the other end of the phone if you ever need them. Eventually we’ll experience a loss that will force us to ask “how will I live without this person, relationship, love, support…etc.”?  How will you handle it? Will you look back and say, I embraced and appreciated every moment I could? Or will you wish you’d said or done more?

People fear opening up, fear sharing our most sensitive and vulnerable parts of ourselves because “what if they think I’m weird or crazy or not good enough or too emotional or too attached or…etc.” So, I say… what if they do? Would you say or do it if you knew there was no tomorrow? Would you rather not say/do whatever it is and wish you had for the rest of your life? Would you rather lose them while they are standing next to you?  That’s for each of us to choose what we’re willing to live with. I know that each time I have wished I’d seen it coming and I wished I’d had the moments, the maturity, the foresight, the courage to be vulnerable and to let them know how important they were.

I would not be who I am without the losses I have endured. I am me because of them and likely in spite of them as well. I still believe in hope and in love because I have felt the loss and the strength of them in the best and the worst times. These gifts wrapped in tragedy have made me who I am. They have shaped how I live and what I want for my future.  I supposed the best way to sum this up is in the words of retired therapist, David Malham,  “grief, after all, is the price we pay for love.”