Chapter XIII – Loss
There will be loss. Inevitably. There will be loss. I will need to let go of things, and not letting go of them will only bring me pain. I will need to let go of hopes and dreams, of imaginings and expectations, of nostalgia and fantasy – the lies of past, present and future. Let this chapter be a reminder that things will never, ever stay the same. Things will always change and the suffering will not come form the change but rather, from the pain of my own thoughts and their yammering about how things should not change. Things will change and that change will bring loss while it also brings new things, new opportunities, new people, new jobs, new homes, new settings and new losses.
So there will be loss. I have lost all smell and taste. There is loss. But I have gained a deeper sense of the need to care for people and take great care regarding the people with whom I connect. People will be lost to me – grandparents, parents, youth, – they will die. But with loss comes something else. With loss comes spaciousness for new things to appear and take their place. New recipes, new friends, new art, new passions, new lovers, new hopes and dreams. For surely the new is the only prize for having lost so much.
We will loose things and people. They will move or we will, or life will, change. And the great work is to feel the loss – really feel it. And then, once felt, honor the loss: “Yes. I have lost that. I loved it and I have lost it and now I must move on without it.” But I sense that God is like the water which works in and around shards of dry clay – the water and the clay changes. God invades our loss and our grief – softening, hydrating them so that from the softened clay comes again, clay; from which some new cup is made, for some new drink, in some new meal. and all shall be well, again.
