Loss To Love

I've recently been confronted or reminded of many losses, not only in my own life, and it made me rather nostalgic. After watching a show that revealed a womans devastating loss when she suffered a miscarriage, it brought home the fact that my own mother had suffered this loss too. Nine times. Nine babies lost. Nine potential lives that were created, dreamed of, planned for, nurtured. And then gone. Just like that. I could not imagine surviving that kind of emotional test and still never giving up hope. Still trying, still believing, still hoping that one day... And then I was born!

My mother and I got onto the subject of my grandfather this evening. A very special man who left behind a reputation filled with kindness, care and humor that all who knew him can never forget. A true gentleman. I wished that he had been around when I was a little older. I wished he could have seen me growing up and continued to comfort me with his charisma as I faced my difficult teenage years. I remember the last day we spent together. We were on a family road trip, never knowing that that would be the last hours of his life. Luckily we were all together, and in a strange way it seemed as if he almost knew that it would be his last day in this world. The angels must have whispered in his ears and told him to make the most of that day. We did.

On a less serious note, another loss I am incurring at the moment is extreme hair loss. Everyone I talk to is convinced it is stress, thus convincing me that it must be too. And that when I finish my last exam for the semester in two days time, it will stop and I will regain my luscious locks. Then I wonder if I continue to worry about the hair loss stopping once normality has returned, will I actually stump the chance by worrying about it not stopping when it should?! Oh what a strange concern, and strange how much our hair is a part of our personality, our character, a reflection of our mood. If I lost it all, I will be about as depressing as I would look. Fitting I suppose, a true reflection once again. So is the hair loss mimicking my loss of control? My loss of balance? Perhaps...

Then we must consider in the first two instances of loss, the more serious ones of course, that they can lead us to a place of love. We can learn to lean on others and receive love and support, we can find new love in a child or partner or simply in family. After all my mothers pain and loss, I was born and finally all that energy could be given to me, all the love she had been dying to give away to a baby that was so desperately wanted. How can one not feel loved when your entrance follows after so much determination? My grandmother, left alone to carry on into old age alone, losing her lover, finds peace in her family and in the familiarity of the things around her. Her routine, her room, her lunch hour, her nick-knacks that comfort her in place of him.

And my stress will subside in just days, followed by a trip to my love. One I hope that will rejuvenate the spark that we both miss, the little things that make us good together, the things we may forget over our time spent apart. When I leave again, a sense of loss pierces my heart and I feel abandoned all over again. I am rudely reminded by the airports and packed suitcase that this is all we have. A few simple days. From loss to love. And back to loss again. the plane will lift from the ground one more time, and pull me away from him for another day, week, month, year. Leaving behind touches that gets washed away under the water, kisses that will fade with every bite, pictures that will blur with time.

Back to square one.