Life and Loss

Marie being given Easter candy on Easter - April 15, 1979.

This day is an anniversary. It’s an anniversary of a loss, the loss of a best friend; my friend Marie had an unexpected heart attack and died on this day in 2009. She was 55.

I know I am not alone in suffering loss, it is one of the things we all experience. Suffering, after all, is the first of the noble truths. All forms of life are impermanent and constantly changing, we constantly have to let go of that which we love. Loss is suffering. People pass from our lives in many ways. As universal as loss is, I also think all looses are unique. Like fingerprints; we all have fingers, but each fingerprint is unique.

My parent’s died in my 20’s, my first wife in my 30’s, my sister in my 40’s and Marie in my 50’s. Yet, I know folks who have had a lot worse. I know folks who lost children or who had their families decimated in war and the holocaust.

As I write this the Grateful Dead song, Ripple is playing on the stereo:

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Loss, experiencing and dealing with loss, is a part of life. We all are wounded and some wounds never heal. That reality is common even if each loss, like each love, is unique. We all die; but love endures. The love that is in our hearts is eternal.