Lost

Love what you've got while you have it

There are no words for this past weekend. Friends lost homes. Colleagues lost their children. Friends lost friends. Communities lost mentors. The whole area is reeling. It was a devastating July 4th. In giant, immeasurable ways like this and in smaller, more subtle, and creeping ways.

A close friend lost her daughter this spring, and I’ve felt that loss deeper than almost any in my life. My mother took a long road to sign off, so there was time. Time to say goodbye. Regret. And then there were all the things tied up in losing the woman who loved you, scarred you, so you don’t feel the loss in its pristine form. It’s clouded. Murky with memories and contradictions.

I’ve lost friends and close acquaintances, but never someone I’ve known almost her whole life and seen grow and struggle and shine from a child to a woman. I’ve watched her parents claw their way through this new life, and even though, for me, school ended with a celebration and a long vacation, her story has been the soundtrack playing on constant repeat in my mind. Every adjacent tragedy and reunion has echoes of that loss. I can’t imagine because I haven’t been through it, but in the deepest, darkest corners of my heart, I know.

Those fears are always there with all of us.

These personal tragedies, along with the current political situation, have left me feeling pretty lost. The environmental loss of forests. The climate causing chaos and pain in ways that some leaders are choosing to ignore. I see my own child and his friends struggling through this new reality, facing distractions and consuming messages that urge them to look away. And at the same time, I see them knowing all the things young people shouldn’t have to know. At least, not yet.

As my child becomes a man and begins to see me through adult eyes, I look back at my failures as a parent. I make excuses for myself and know that even though I am imperfect, I’m better than my own parents at facing hard truths.

I am learning to listen. Convincing myself, there is still time.

All these things that are happening, they all tie back in a cosmic way that is difficult to explain but holds kernels of the meaning of everything. All the things we’re losing, but by bit. All the things we love. I see so many things floating away, and yet I want to throw them a lifeline, hold them tighter. I imagine all those brave souls reaching for those children, trying to pull them close and protect them from an unstoppable force.

We are all doing this. Sifting through the muck, looking for that lost thing before it slips away. Holding onto threads.

I see all these things. I try to make sense of them even though they are senseless. I have to remind myself.

Find the hope. Recognize the joy in this life. Keep the candle burning.

Don’t let go.