Loss Speaks
Maybe it’s the change of season — summer into autumn with winter waiting in the wings, maybe it was a recent conversation with a friend, maybe a reflection on something that was or wasn’t, or even, maybe, my body gently reminding me of a miscarriage 27 years ago, but lately, Loss has been sitting with me and speaking to me.
The build up of loss — the quiet intangible losses that see no ceremony or milestone and aren’t recognized as loss because they are so cloaked in gain, arrival, success, joy, surviving, and completion… But when the hoopla settles, the loss peeks its head out and up to see if it’s safe to speak. And usually — it is not. Until loss, after and through much trial and error finally finds its voice, and by now doesn’t know the strength it has — it shouts out as depression, anger, frustration, control, madness, or manipulation — simply desiring to announce its presence.
I’m here!
I’M Here!!
I’M HERE!!!
I’m not asking for much — just for you to recognize that I exist! I have meaning; I, “Loss”, sit with “Gain”! Let me know you see me, and I can sit silently. But if you refuse to even acknowledge my existence — I will find you. I will seek you out, and I won’t understand the power I possess. I am what lies beneath the rug covered mountain on the floor that continues to trip you up because you have swept me there with your tidy broom.
You will grapple, wrestle and cry with me until you can see me seated quietly and calmly next to “Gain”.
Gain and I coexist.
Take for example a book you have longed to read. Once you finish reading the book, you have gained much from the experience of the reading. Where was I? — the loss, you ask? I was the longing in that scenario. Longing didn’t cost all that much. It wasn’t too much of the mass in the mountain. But without the longing, the treasure you found in the pages might not have been their fullest.
More examples you require?
Take the success of point shoes on a stage,
the joy of crossing the finish line,
or the win
on a field
with a ball
and players
and maybe viewers
win or lose in the game this time—
Perhaps, I, Loss, am the things sacrificed to show up there, cheer there, play there, be there, work there!
I can be time.
I can be energy.
I can snuggle in with sacrifice.
I can be with the No, and the Yes. I’m a little odd that way.
I can be misplaced, traded, or exchanged for enthusiasm.
I, Loss, am in choices and decisions — right alongside Gain.
Just see me!
I am what wasn’t, and even in what is, I still exist!
I am what was left behind when you travelled overseas. I am what wasn’t when you moved across town or out of state. I am in the home you bought and in the place you remained. I am what didn’t happen when you took that next job. I am with the siblings left behind when you went to college.
It’s OK — I’m good — I exist — just see me and we’ll all be OK.
Because as you see me,
you change,
you grow,
you include depth and richness in your story
and in your listening
and in your dealings day to day.
I exist on both sides of the fence and on both sides of the borders.
I may seem very small or like nothing at all, but actually, I am part of it all.
See me for what I am.
I exist with the tests run, in the scar, the scab, the staples, and the pathology report. I can come before, during, and after all that takes place. I, Loss, am what the scalpel left behind so that you could heal;
I am with the numbness that remains.
I wait to be acknowledged by both the patient and the caregiver too…
I am the memory that slips away and, yes, I am sorry.
I don’t happen for a reason, but I do exist.
Gain and Loss, we are both a part of the human experience.
I am Loss:
See me,
listen to me,
sit with me,
grieve me in all of my simplicities and complexities.
I refuse to be wasted.
I am real, just not often tangible.
Spend some time with me.