Chaplain's Corner

Recently I addressed a group of folks at Fernwood Place in Steinbach.  I was having a particularly disoriented day and I was late, they were forgiving, we shared a good time together.  Thank you!
 
The topic they had asked me to address was Loss.  Loss is a familiar topic in my work and it was actually quite helpful to be asked to address the subject with these dear folks.  We most often think of loss in relation to death, but life has many, many other losses and what makes a loss significant is very personal.  I thought I might condense my address and share some of my thoughts on loss with you.

As I was pondering loss, I thought it might be helpful to do an autopsy on loss, dissect it a bit to discover its parts.  As I thought about loss in this way I discovered three components of loss that I found helpful to examine.

The first component of loss is the fact that all loss requires a parting with someone or something to which we were attached.  May Anne Evans, better know as George Eliot (her pen name) wrote, “In every parting there is an image of death.”  That is why partings are so painful, each time we part, even when it is a temporary one, we feel the tearing.  If you have an adult child who lives in a different province or country you will be able to relate to this.  Visits are so anticipated, but when the visit is over, it is so hard to say good bye because we know it will be some time before we see each other again and that parting is like being torn apart.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put it this way, “They who go (die) feel not the pain of parting, it is they who are left behind that suffer.”

I’ve stood at bedsides and watched this parting happen.  When the parting is anticipated and the family is gathered, the family often gathers in the room, many times more crowded than is usually comfortable, and they watch and wait.  They all know what is coming, there is no reason to believe that death is not immanent, but when that final breath is taken and the nurse is called to confirm the death, sometimes the parting is almost audible, like the tearing of hearts once connected with strong cords of love being ripped apart.  Loss requires a parting with someone or something that we are attached to.  It hurts!

The second component of loss that I discovered involves the end of affection.  The love that people share stops abruptly when loss takes place.  You may protest, “No, I still love that person, I will love them as long as I live, even if they have been gone for years.”  I understand the sentiment.  But love is a relational word.  It is about mutuality.  Have you ever been in love with someone who doesn’t even know you exist?  Many who idolize celebrities talk about loving this person or that person, but the reality is, if you were in a crowded room with that person, that person wouldn’t look for you, wouldn’t seek you out, wouldn’t find a way to steal away for a few minutes and be alone with you.   What ever that feeling is, it isn’t love.  Although love has an emotional component, love is primarily a commitment to act in the best interest of another.  When two people who share that reality experience the parting of death, the loss they experience entails the loss of affection, the loss of knowing that that special person will be there to look out for my best interests.  

Gone is the comfortable silence shared by two who have grown to know each other so well that words are not necessary.  Gone is the warmth felt in the heart felt when the other shows even the simplest consideration.  Gone is the opportunity to make a sacrifice for the good of the other.  Gone is the affection once shared.  As long as the one we love is with us, there is potential and possibility but death means the “impossibility of further possibility” as German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, once put it.  The affection that bound two hearts and lives together when ripped and torn apart by loss is destroyed, it dies with the other and all the longing in the world will not be capable of bringing it back.

The final component of loss that I was struck by is the void it creates, the emptiness, the vacuum.  If you don’t know this first hand, you have probably heard another talk about the profound emptiness that happens, both within and around a person when someone they cared for dies.  This loss creates an empty spot in the heart, in the physical spaces once shared, in the mind, and in one’s social circle.   The void is immense and overwhelming and at times it is the most difficult part of the loss.  In the early days after the loss, this void may be so overwhelming that some people have a hard time going home, sleeping in a once shared bed, confronting the myriad of reminders of the one that once filled that emptiness.  The never to be worn shoes by the door, the favorite chair in the living room, the junk drawer in the kitchen that once drove you crazy now exist as a testament to the emptiness, never to be used again.  One person who experienced loss put it this way:  “Courageous – that’s how you see me.  Happy – that’s what you expect of me.  But…Emptiness – that is what is inside of me.”

Socially, North Americans have become extremely averse to confronting the realities of loss.  In the funeral industry more and more families are electing not to hold a service.   But loss can not be avoided, neither can the tearing apart that happens when we experience loss, nor the death of affection in the relationship ended by loss, or the crushing emptiness that is created when loss takes place.

Most survive the trauma of loss, not all, but most.  Depending on the depth and breadth of the relationship lost the trauma may be more profound or less profound, but when loss occurs, so does the tearing apart, the loss of affection and the creation of that void that is so hard to bear.  Most of the time we just experience these things; most of the time we do not have the energy to dissect the loss and look at its component parts.  Maybe reading this article is just too painful and long before you reached this line you threw it aside.  That’s OK.  But for those of us who were able to read it threw, maybe this examination of loss will help us be more compassionate, more understanding, less impatient with someone we know who has just lost and is now suffering.

If you ever find yourself drowning in the impact of your loss and you need someone to talk to, fee free to give me a call (204-346-5166).  I’m not at my desk all the time, I guess you knew that, but I will get back to you and I will do my best to simply accompany you in the pain of your loss, for nothing I can say or do can resolve that pain.  But you know, I have discovered that I seldom expect others to resolve my pain, but it sure would be nice to have someone who was comfortable enough with my pain that they could journey with me as I move through it.