Bombarded By Loss

A week ago my best friend from childhood lost her mother suddenly. Tonight, her father– just as suddenly and unexpectedly. A friendly acquaintance – another mom from my daughter’s pre-school – was due last month with what they knew to be a healthy little boy; he was born with Down Syndrome. A customer who ordered a print from me and sent a note with her check shared that she had recently lost a child . . . Another pillar from Higgins Lake passed on last week.

It’s a lot. A lot of sadness for a heart to hold. And my greatest sadness is for those who are enduring these losses. Trying to understand. Make sense. Figure out what’s next and how you go on when the world as you know it has collapsed.

On September 4th it will be the eleventh anniversary of my dad’s sudden passing. In some ways it feels like yesterday and in others, a lifetime. The first few days were exhausting and numbing. I felt like a zombie. It wasn’t until after the funeral and I returned home to school and work that it sunk in. And sometimes I’d sink and sometimes I’d swim but I always knew that some way, somehow I had to stay afloat.

Sometimes that meant doing absolutely nothing. Or sobbing. Or walking. Or writing. Or calling a friend. Or going to a movie. Or looking at old pictures of my dad and reading letters he wrote to me. Sometimes I needed people. Sometimes I didn’t want anyone. Sometimes I simply didn’t want to be me in my life at that moment.

But there were other times later on where I’d catch a glimmer of my old self and almost remember what it felt like to be normal in my own skin. When I actually could eat something and really enjoy it. Or immerse myself in a conversation with a friend that wasn’t about me or my loss. Or go do something spontaneous and actually enjoy it. It happens. It really does. And I would never have believed anyone. That you could feel normal again after a nuclear bomb had shattered all you used to hold as dear and true. The weird part is, there’s no rhyme or reason to loss. There’s no timeline and no hard-fast protocol to follow. It’s just each to his or her own, knocking around, falling, getting up, sitting up, catching one’s breath. Breathing. Continuing to move through life. Growing and becoming more of who we are meant to be. Shaped by our losses. Our hopes. Our fears. Life and death.

Perhaps one of the greatest pieces of advice came from my grandmother – and she uses this one a lot – and dammit if it’s not true every time: This too shall pass. Because at the time, it seems incomprehensible that the pain and emptiness and sadness we feel, could ever resolve themselves into some other malleable form that would make us human again. Won’t ever happen, we say. But it does and it will.

My grandmother is right and so are you. Whatever losses you are bearing: They are yours. They are your life and your truth. They hold lessons and the keys to greater love and understanding. By surviving and moving through at your own pace and in your own way, you are composing your life and how you choose to live . . . by making sense of how we die and what we do in that seemingly empty space between here and there.

This is dedicated to the sister I never had but chose as my own – my oldest and dearest friend: Terri Lynn Wilder. My heart is always with you. No matter the distance between us, I am never far away.