Recall, I was sharing an airport experience by way of a verbatim journal entry that is concluded below.
…I had to catch my breath but still a tear escaped my eye and I tipped my head slightly, to speed up my ability to wipe it.
“We all lose something,” I thought. Some losses can’t be masked at all. Losing an arm for example is so blatant, no one would ask you to do the things you used to do when you had two (assuming the patron did at some point which may not be accurate.)
But with the loss of a daughter, loss of a son it is not physically obvious when we are out in the world. Yet we are asked to continue life without our children (loved one or pet even.) Despite our profound loss we don’t have a way to say “I am going to need some time to learn to live this way.”
We can’t say “I need rehab and occupational therapy for my soul because I cannot navigate life the same way when part of me is missing.”
(My journal entry continued with a reflection back to 1997 when my Daughter Alexis died. Details I won’t share here.) But in conclusion of the piece wrote the last part:
“We all lose something.” In a moment of honor and respect for the woman in Carrabba’s I prayed for her Peace.
I then thought “If we don’t lose something, we haven’t really loved.”