Tag: meaning

“All the trees are losing their leaves and not one of them is worried.”

Donald Miller

I lost a client this week.

I came into my office on Monday morning and was going about making phone calls when I got the news that he had died. It was sudden. Unexpected.

In that moment, I closed my eyes and waited for my heart to drop as it does when news of loss arises. So young, and seemingly on the mend and “how could I not see this coming?”. “What do I feel? Should I feel? What was on his mind?”. All of these thoughts run through my mind as I sit in my desk chair and try figure out the next step. I like to imagine a tiny little warehouse worker in my brain representing my sensible mind relaying to other parts of my mind: ” Alright, boys, time to bring in the cleanup crew, we’ve got a mess over here that’s gonna need tending to !”. As if there is some subconscious protocol to handle this news. Because the reality was, right in this moment, the feeling was familiar. It was not new. It stopped being new a long time ago. The cleanup crew never came. It didn’t have to.

Before you judge, please understand that it is not because I have become desensitized to this type of news. I haven’t. But I have had to create a protective layer in my brain throughout the years in order to deal with loss because if that layer is not there, I break. I break in a way that has me in the fetal position in bed every weekend, wishing I could be someone else.

It is hard for me to put words down about the feeling of loss. Losing. As if life can be compared to some type of game and as we lose people, we lose aspects of the game. The word feels thoughtless and harsh. It doesn’t feel big enough to account for the gaping hole that is often placed on one’s life when someone else is no longer in it. It’s not fair. It feels senseless. It feels wrong and “what am I supposed to do now?”. The very thought that anything can ever be how it was is almost insulting and equivalent to rubbing salt in a fresh wound. There is never enough time for things to feel complete when someone is suddenly or not so suddenly taken out of your life. And there is never a word, a combination of letters or phrases that can describe how completely and wholeheartedly devastating loss can be.

When I was in college my professor told me about a job opportunity working for a summer school program with children in high school prepping for college to develop their art portfolios. It was a month long, and the pay was really good in my 20 year old mind. So I jumped on it. I applied for the position of counselor and was offered the position of head counselor. I had no idea what I was doing but it was exciting. My first summer there, I hated it. It was awful. But something stuck with me and that was how much I adored the kids. So the next summer, when it was time to decide if I was going to go back, I did.

This was the summer I met the student who largely inspired my career. He was 13 when he first came to the program and he was a ball of light alive in the vessel of a blue eyed, dimple faced smiling little artist. I worked with him throughout this summer and then continued the summer after that. We would spend time in the common area chatting about our favorite foods, and baked goods and we would practice our accents together. Some people come into your life right when you need to learn specific lessons and I had a lot to learn from him. Kindness, humor, how to be actively engaged in the moment, how to access my inner child again. It was during my third summer there that he had expressed to me the most remarkable compliment I had ever been given: “I feel so safe around you”. That was it. That was all it took. The instant the month had ended, I went home and started putting all of my things together so I could start grad school to become a therapist.

Two semesters into grad school, I found out that he had died. It was sudden. Unexpected.

I had dealt with loss before. I had dealt with perceived loss and close calls with loss. But nothing, not a single thing could have ever prepared me for this loss. I felt the earth crumble underneath my feet. I begged for it to be untrue. I found myself trying to contact him to find out if he was alright. My brain could not comprehend. There are times where it still doesn’t. I found myself going through it in my head, over and over. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I felt guilt. I wasn’t there to help him through whatever pain he was feeling in his last moments. I found myself coming up with excuses for this: Life had gotten in the way and we had lost touch. I didn’t want to bother him as he embarked on his life adventures, etc. I found myself thinking that I should have known that his light was too bright to be shining for long. The universe is good to people, but he was a gift this world was likely not ready for.

Loss. Losing. To be lost. I have lost. I lost. The world has lost. Lost.

If I say it enough times it starts to feel abstract on my tongue. The word doesn’t attach itself to the event that it represents. It implies irresponsibility and faultiness. It sounds and feels belittling.

When loss is sudden, there is a different kind of pain that comes with it. It’s not silent or one that you can expect. It’s the type of pain that comes when you miss a step going down the stairs and before you’ve realized what has happened, you’re already on the floor. It’s a cold, hard landing on concrete. It’s the sting that comes with the aftershock of landing on your hands and knees after the step was missed. It’s recognizing you will have bruises for a while after. It’s waking up the next day and feeling sore because the impact was so hard. It’s sitting at work and one day having a strange flashback and thinking “How could I have missed that step!?”. There is no answer and there is rarely closure.

When loss is sudden it makes you hold on tight to the memory of someone who has been stolen away from your life. It is pangs of anxiety each time you depart from your living loved ones. It’s answering the phone with a slight dread every time you get a call because any call could be “the call” delivering “the news”. You live life, often preparing to hear the news because if you’re always prepared it can’t possibly hurt as much as it did the first time. Right?

One big thing I have learned since being in this profession is not that loss is something to “get over”, it is something we can only make room for. There is no such thing as “time heals all”. Time heals nothing, but it does help you create a bigger space in your heart for the moments you share. But something else I have learned since being in this profession is the idea that however horrible loss is, either personal, professional, perceived, etc. it almost always forces you to create something new for yourself. It’s instant transition. Maybe it’s a subconscious way to fill a void. Maybe it is a coping skill. I don’t know what I would call it. I’m not talking about opportunities or the notion of doors closing and opening or chapters ending and beginning. I am talking about real moments of authentic re-creation for how you thought your life would go. Because when loss arises, it is not ever possible for one to just go back to the way things were. We have to build on that loss in order to move into a new version of our future. A version that doesn’t include who or what has been taken away.

Loss brings about revision. It asks us to consider what is important to us. It asks us to break things down and take an inventory of what is specific and necessary for us to keep going. It asks you to slow down and take care of yourself because whether you have lost a person, a pet (same thing), a job, an object of importance, a house, whatever you are going to have to take a minute to reassess what is important for your next move.

When something or someone is lost to us, or taken from us, we are left to mourn that person’s or thing’s absence in our lives, and what they or it meant to us. I often wonder if mourning or grief is an act of selfishness because of this. Is it wrong that we mourn the impact this person or thing has had on our lives, or is it more appropriate to celebrate that this person or thing has swapped energies and is on a new adventure?

When my uncle died suddenly several years ago, I remember crying in the hospital wondering what the hell came next for our family. We would never be the same. We weren’t. We aren’t. But we have adapted. We have had to create new traditions. We had to accept that he would not be present at weddings or funerals or holidays. We had to accept the impact it had on family dynamics. Because to try to change any of it, would be holding on to something that was no longer obtainable. I am not a religious person. But I do believe in energy shifts and that when someone leaves their human vessel, it is entirely possible for them to take flight into a new vessel. I find myself channeling into his energy and promising it that I will always try to create something better for myself. Because things don’t just happen to or for us. They happen because of us. Because of what we create and do for ourselves when we are forced into transition. How we revise the original blueprints of what we thought we had totally sorted out.

Loss allows us to create new futures. It asks us to imagine what is at stake if we do not live the life we know we want, truly and deep down. It’s not that life is too short. It’s that any second spent doing something you hate or forcing yourself into a cookie cutter mold is a second too long. Loss asks us how we want to spend our time. Loss asks us to face our innermost fears about all the potential we really have and yet somehow, do not use. It’s not always about who or what we have lost. Sometimes grief and mourning transforms into an unexpected check in for all we might have lost trying to live life according to someone else’s standards. Loss is not about opportunities that fall in our path because after the funeral, the life we had before the loss is still somehow waiting for us as though nothing has happened. But sometimes, if we pay attention to it, there is a shift within us that tells us that something about the way things are needs tweaking. Loss allows us to utilize the tools in life that make it worth living again. Loss puts the pencil in our hands to be able to write or create our own meaning out of what has happened.

There is a cyclical pattern to this and within us. We see it every year when the seasons change. There is something beautiful about each one, and we have to adapt each time. In the spirit of autumn, leaves turn beautiful colors as one last gift before they say goodbye to us. These specific leaves may be gone, but the trees remain there, resting. They still possess the ability to grow leaves and when they awake and feel ready they begin. So come spring, the new leaves come about and greet us with the sweet smell of hello. It’s silent adaptation, and re-creation. But it surrounds us every day.

Loss isn’t always about goodbye. In fact, it is often about how we navigate transition, create meaning and what we are going to do in the future to make sure we have lived according to what our energy requires of us. Loss allows you to rest. It forces you to access parts of your brain and soul that maybe you have placed on a shelf for a while. Loss hurts. Of course it hurts. Mourning and grief are real and never get easier with time. But we do learn to give them their appropriate space when they require it of us.

I am not saying you have to accept loss or forget about those who are no longer with you. But I am saying it would be unfortunate not to honor their energy or spirit or memory by living a life unfulfilled. We, at the very least, deserve to give it some thought. I am saying, sometimes our blueprints need revisions. Sometimes we need new maps for the path we thought we were headed down. Sometimes we need to create a new path altogether.

I leave you with this today: What does loss mean to you? What transition has it led you to? How are you navigating that transition? What life revisions have you had to make recently? Have you checked in with your energy to make sure you are following your full potential and using your time the way you want to be? What new practices you have had to create for yourself as a means of continuing on? What have you had to make room for recently? What does a life fulfilled look like to you? What does loss require of you? How will you make room in your heart for what you have lost? How will you create meaning out of your losses?

Warm regards,

Gina