Thoughts on this past week

The passage below is part of blog by Jon Katz, who writes about life on “Bedlam Farm” in upstate New York. He was writing about the different types of loss, and how we react to it when it happens. These words seem particularly appropriate this week, and have helped to deal with the feelings of loss caused by the violation of my home and the realization of personal vulnerability. Each day is a little easier than the last, though. And each day, I realize how incredibly fortunate I am to have such an amazing support network of friends and family. That knowledge is the ‘something better’ that Katz writes about.


“I think loss is best handled slowly, in bits and pieces, with deep breaths, by taking one walk, talking to one close friend, walking dogs, reading bits and pieces of a good book, or poem. Journaling helps, in that loss is recorded, dealt with noted, as it should be. Acknowledging the loss to yourself and to others is, I think, also good. I think it is somewhat appropriate to be embarrassed by loss, otherwise, we would be drowning in it, and stories and laments about it. Loss is an inevitable part of life, even if it surprises us, overwhelms us, and hurts. Like pain it's a mystery, since a benevolent God wouldn't allow us to suffer it. And, I suppose, it is a private thing, since even if we are fortunate to know people willing to share our loss, or help us with it, it is also something that only we can feel, that sense of pain, of having a piece cut out of us, of having lost something we may never find again. Sometimes people deny loss, thinking of it as temporary, or are reflexively reassured by people telling them things will be fine, what was lost will inevitably be recovered, regained, replaced. I'm not sure. Sometimes what is lost is gone for good, in one way or another. I do believe that loss is a gift, like most things you feel, that opens us up and leads us to different places. And I tell friends who have suffered a loss, this: toughness doesn't come from denying loss, but from the ability to think and see beyond it, to imagine a hole filled in with something else, a time and space where will inevitably fade and soften and be replaced by something else, if we are lucky, something better.”