Loss

Journal for Christa—

I stopped by Mardel’s a few weeks ago to pick up a book, but as I walked over to the books, there knelt Rachelle, weeping in the grieving section, fingers skimming over the open pages of a book from the bottom shelf—so very alone in a public place.

Loss is something that people, for the most part, experience alone. Not to minimize the care and prayers of others and even the assurance that God is in control—loss is still a very lonely place. Because we’re each different, it seems we must each find our own way through the darkness, and it’s often a lonely trail—especially at the beginning.

Sometimes loss is so great—far greater than we thought we could ever bear. It wakes us in the night; it torments us there. It haunts us by day. It is ever present. And yet so often, nobody knows. And we feel so very alone.

So, what do we do? I don’t know what we do—we just get through—one day, one moment, one breath at a time. Loss cannot be ignored; it must be realized. It’s far better to weep in Mardel’s among strangers than to “gird up one’s loins.” (That’s an old King James way of saying, suck it up and carry on.)

Then eventually, there comes a time to set loss out of the forefront, but for Rachelle that is not today, nor tomorrow, or the next. Loss is, indeed, a lonely place, yet it is also a shared place. Remember that shared loss builds strong ties—and shared comfort.