Love and Loss

Loss: the fact or process of losing something or someone.

I don’t know what else to do except write. I have a hard time vocalizing how I feel and writing is sometimes the only way I can get it out. My family lost one of our most precious members last week. She was kind, beautiful, so talented, and so full of joy. She brought a smile to everyone she met. Her loss is not one any of us will ever get over. She held a special in all of our hearts.

There’s been so much loss over the past couple years. My mom who was my best friend, both of my grandparents that I loved so dearly, my best friend’s dad who was one of the best men I knew, a friend who supported me and stood by me during my hardest times, my uncle that loved to tease me, my dog Gizmo who I know was just a dog, but he was the best dog. I’ve written here about some, others I have written down just for me to remember. These losses while so hard to bear, are expected in life.

It’s the other losses that seem so much more difficult to endure. The loss of my marriage was almost impossible to get through. It wasn’t about losing him, it was the loss of my family unit and what I had pictured my future to be that was so hard to handle. We often equate loss with the definition above, but sometimes loss is not so tangible. Sometimes it’s the loss of an expected or envisioned future. Sometimes we have to mourn the loss of something we never had or never will have. I didn’t really mourn the loss of the man I was married to, he was not kind and did not treat me well, but I did and sometimes still do mourn the loss of the man I never had and the one my boys never had. My plan was not God’s plan.

The goodbye we all said yesterday, and all the tears we will continue to shed in the days, months, and years to come are not just for the sweet girl we lost, it’s for the future we all envisioned for her and her family. The future we all dreamed about for our family. While I know right now she is singing and dancing not just with God, but with the others we have lost recently who all loved her so much, I do not understand why. I also know that the why is not important at this moment, God always knows what He’s doing even if it makes no sense to us. The more important thing is remembering how she lived and knowing that her life made a difference to so many. She blessed everyone who ever met her and I know her life will continue to bless others in the future, because God’s plan is always greater than ours.

There are some people who are only here for a short time, but their impact is forever.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9