I’m thinking about loss tonight.
I’ve noticed something unexpected that happens when I think about grief, or losing a loved one. In the last few months, my next thought after a sad thought is, “But think of what you’ve already lost.”
Think of all the time that is already gone, all the memories that are already memories, all the little daily truths that were a comfort or a joy and are gone now, left behind with passing time, or brokenness, or growth. Think of what you’ve already lost. Why is this idea what comes to help me?
I don’t know, wholly. I will learn. But I can guess.
Because I’m still here. My life is still here, finding and making meaning, knowing love, dreaming dreams. I’m still here. I’ve already survived loss, one way or another. This is already the afterlife for those earlier deaths.
We all lose that primary innocence, the time before we ever lost or grieved. But that personal knowledge of death is the only way to believe in life. No beginnings without endings first. No escape without entanglement first. Every moment is a resurrection because it has occurred after another moment, however much beloved, has past.
-Photo by Boris Smokrovic on Unsplash
Melinda Johnson, Writing 