Loss
Personal Relatives and Friends
Every time I lose a family member or really anyone close to me, it feels like I have entered another dimension. It is a mixture of several things including:
— being forced into an unknown world now missing an essential part
— being stunned even if I was told or knew that it was going to happen
— questioning why it happened the way it happened
— trying to accept what I know intellectually that I must accept but also that I never will completely, emotionally accept
Regardless of how I might describe the stages that I go through during such times, and which I will continue to go through for years and years afterward, I know that with each person gone, everything has changed.
It hurts and it never stops hurting even though the pain can and must subside a bit in the coming years in order for me to continue onward, to remain intact during a life that still has its daily requirements.
Mourning
Mourning enters and re-enters whenever I think about anything at all related to the person who is gone. There are scenes in my head that no one knows about. There are conversations, episodes and experiences that are never forgotten and that can be recalled instantly, many times in the future.
Anything can trigger deep memories and feelings. Sometimes it's music, sometimes it's something I read or see on TV or in a film, sometimes it's dreams in the middle of the night, and almost always it's photos and writings involving that person. They take control and keep that person alive inside me while at the same time intensifying the loss. Any of these aspects can result in tears now and years later.
I have written down my feelings about the loss of specific people in my life, and I even wrote down my more intense dreams involving one person in particular, my mother. Sometimes I woke up crying. I know when it comes to my mother (and my closest friend, Larry) I will always deeply miss them and think about them often.
Unknown Persons
But I am a person who feels loss even when something happens to a person or persons not directly known to me. On the news every day there is someone being lost and a part of me always feels it. I think about them and their families and friends. I know that pain because I have felt it.
I know that we are all here only for a short time, but I also know that people remain with us after they are gone, regardless of the inevitability of their leaving. There is much that keeps them alive in our minds and hearts for a very long time, through our shared experiences, their words and images, their children, and the friends and communities who each saw unique parts of them.
Pain and Sight
The one constant, which permeates all loss, is the pain that lasts inside of me. It is not a physical pain but an emotional hurt that never actually leaves and instead resurfaces without warning, whenever it want to.
Through that pain, those I have lost remain so close to me that they become a part of me all over again. Through my refreshed realization that they always were there right beside me, they remain so.
But now they see the world through my eyes, and I see the world for them.
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