Remembering and Lossing

When there is loss, we begin the hunt. We retrace our steps, trying to remember the last place we may have seen our keys, the tv remote, our glasses, etc. We take journeys throughout our abodes trying to find the lost thing: under seat cushions, in drawers, and even in places where we know the thing couldn’t be like the refrigerator. Actually, I did find the tv remote in the refrigerator once. I probably got distracted doing some thing or talking to some one, and placed it there absentmindedly. I am happy to report that I have not done the same in decades. Yet, I was so relieved when I found it that the place where I found it didn’t feel strange. What was once lost was found, and that was all that mattered.

I wish that the same could be done when it comes to people. When there is loss of a loved one, we do not hunt for him or her, because we understand that the finality creates futility. No seat cushions need be upturned, and no contents of any drawer need be jostled and unorganized. There is no need because we know. It is the weight of this particular knowing that creates the sadness that produces the tears that flow and flow and flow. We do not cry the river of a jilted lover that Arthur Hamilton sang about, which contains its unique pain. No, this river that gets cried contains the unique pain of finality. Like Poe grieved for his Lenore, the physical presence of our loved ones shall be nevermore.

As time passes after a loss, the most amazingest thing happens! We forget and we remember at the same time. I had heard others testify to this phenomenon, but did not believe it until I experienced it myself. I know that I had arguments with my mother and father while I was growing up. That is the natural course of things. However, I cannot remember any of them, yet I firmly remember favorite restaurants, the sounds of laughter, silly stories, lessons taught, and a whole host of good things. I suppose that if I tried hard enough I could recall the arguments, but why should I? I like that I have forgotten because they obviously didn’t mean very much. They were obviously centered around a crumb of pettiness that has been and needed to be brushed off of life’s table. Though, while sitting at that table, so many jokes and stories were told over and over again to the point of annoyance. Oh, but how I would love to be annoyed just one more time by those jokes and stories that I know verbatim. If I had known that the last time those jokes and stories were told, that those would be the last times, I would have sat in rapt attention, and I would have begged for one more telling. And I would have wrapped myself in those tellings, and held them as close I held my comfort object when I was tucked in for the night. Theirs weren’t the funniest jokes and stories ever told, but they were the best I had ever heard. They are worth remembering, and that is all that matters.

I suppose that this is the living’s lesson before dying. We tend to place multitudinous amounts of effort into remembering hurts and slights and wrongs, and then plotting and planning a reckoning for those that provided those slights. Then, some of that revenge is meted out. With all of that energy spent, what was created? Figuring out what was accomplished is easy; anger and pain multiplied within the self. The longer and tighter that those were held onto, the more the pain and stuffing multiplied. Was all of that effort worth it? If this cannot be answered right away, the grieving process will reveal the response. My most ardent hope is that we learn to let go of the pettiness, stop worrying about the small stuff, and realize that it is all small stuff.

If energy needs to be put into remembering, hold onto the one who caused that belly aching laughter that one time; hold onto finding shapes in clouds in the park; hold onto who was at the table when there was the breaking of bread; hold onto the sightings of butterflies that appear out of nowhere; hold onto the lessons that the generations have handed down. As the grief shifts and changes as time marches ever forward, stories can be told about these rememberings with fewer and fewer tears shed. What was once a river will be no more that a trace on a cheek. Or, maybe the retelling of what is really important will bring smiles to the faces of the teller and the listeners. By the way, please do not think that the lack of tears is somehow disrespectful. On the contrary, the soul has become whole once again because it realizes that the dead have buried the dead. The living are enjoying the now because the soul knows that that is what the dead want for us. Life is meant to be a bacchanal precisely because we understand the finality of loss. Therefore, we must cherish what we have because it is so joyous and it is so fleeting.