This week, my fellow Observers, I found myself repeating a mistake I made two years ago. I realized too late that I had allowed myself to fall, yet again, into complacency when it came to my life and the family that encircles it. I, like most of us, focused on my day to day routine and ignored the fact that situations within our lives are in a constant state of change whether we like it or not. I had apparently forgotten the lesson I thought I had learned in August of 2013 when my father passed away. As the months passed since then, I let myself break the promises I made to cherish every moment that I had with my remaining family. Fooled myself into believing that I wouldn't take for granted the people I cared about in my life. Swearing that I would never again be that naïve about life and the loss we possibly face every day. And yet here I am facing that loss again and being taken aback by he unexpectedness of it.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we continually face loss and not carry it with us for more than a short period of time after it happens to each of us? Why do we seem to forget that nothing in our lives is guaranteed to us until it's too late and we face the regret of not having enough time yet again? Is it because we don't want to keep facing the reality of our own mortality? Does time wear away at the acuteness of our loss and make us forget that it can happen again at any moment? Maybe we just prefer to live in denial rather than being reminded of the experience daily.
I believe it is a small part of all these reasons and probably a few of some that I haven't considered. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that our loss brings us closer to each other. Our loss let's us forgive a little easier, hate a little less and love a lot more. It makes us more aware of others feelings. It makes our words to others kinder and others words to us more potent. In essence, loss helps us become the people we truly wish to be and being the catalyst for this phenomenon is the very reason that it can't last. We're just not built that way. We have the capability to accept only so much tragedy. We have difficulties within our own acceptance of the situation of having to say a final goodbye to a mother or father, child, sibling, aunt, uncle.....a friend, so we find solace with the people surrounding us that are sharing the same sorrow. That bond is succinct but does not make it any less important because of the short time we experience it with each other. It's a bond of commonality, of sharing, of grief. It holds positive and negative emotions at the same time. Positive in the way it brings us together, negative because of how it was initiated. That's why its fleeting. As our minds allow us to forget our heartache and return to our normal lives, it creates a conflict within our hearts if we reattach to those feelings again. It makes us remember our mourning. Although we want to carry our loved ones memory with us, our minds wish to do it in a way that allows us to function without the weight of sadness across our shoulders. We simply forget to remember the despair but not the person and the ties that bind us in crisis tend to fall back into normalcy as well. It's the way of things. It's how we heal, how we cope. It makes our departed no less in our hearts but allows our pain to fade.
Our lives are very brief compared to the vast complexity of time. When we experience a loss it is very important to cling to those who are closest to us. To cherish them. To carry them when they cannot carry themselves and to look to them to carry us when we suffer the same. We need that sense of family even if it only lasts a little while. It is necessary in our lives as we say goodbye to someone we hold dear. The void that is left by someone's passing can never be completely filled, but that bond of caring we share with each other makes it bearable. We should revel in it, appreciate and treasure it while we have it before our lives mercifully allow us to forget once again. So to Gwen, my father, Kayleigh, John and Dennis, I miss and love you all. I will never forget to remember any of you.
