Boston, Newtown, Sandy, it all comes together at once and makes me feel a deep hole in the chest for all the losses we've had in less than a year. I feel pain for things that I didn't know were part of my life, until I lost them. Like that 8 year old kid in Boston, or all the children in Newtown or all the houses in the Rockaways.
But it shouldn't be like this. I should be used to this by now. I should be made out of stone. After all, I have been familiar with loss since I was a kid. We all have. We all have lost many things in this life. Due to my father's job, we had to move every few years during my childhood. Every time leaving behind best friends, acquaintances, the owner of the candy store, the smell of the house, a bike, the trees in a park, the streets, a school. People and things that I loved deeply. They were gone forever. How did I survived so much pain? I was so little and understood almost nothing.
I lost all these, but my life was instantly full of a whole new set of smells, places and people to learn about. There was no time to mourn all those lost things. I had to learn a new accent, new words, new faces, new attitudes, new streets, new flavors, new smells. It was like landing into another world. But the sorrow for the past would stay with me forever. I still remember short snaps from friends left behind long ago. They come to me in the least expected moments. I remember their names and dream about going to find them some day. Hey, remember me? We were best friends in first grade. That sounds so silly!
Over the years, as we moved from one place to the next, I learned a few things in order to survive. I would like to share them with you, whoever is reading this, because I'm sure you too have lost something you loved.
1) Do something.
Our society is full of ways to grieve our loss, specially if you are religious. All religions have services, prayers or traditions to help grieve. It may not heal us from the pain, but they are important. Don't underestimate these rituals. If you are not religious, you can come up with your own rituals. I am writing this blog now, and this is my way of grieving. You can do the same, you can paint, you can invite friends for drinks one night and remember the person or the place you lost. You can light a candle for your loss, you can bury it symbolically in the backyard and place flowers over the "tomb".
2) Talk about it.
For a long time I didn't talk to anyone about how I was feeling, and people wouldn't understand me or my mood swings. I felt alienated. I thought nobody cared or could understand what I went through. How could they? As I began telling my story to my closest friends and then my parents, I was surprised to find out that people was more supportive than I ever thought. Maybe they couldn't understand the specifics of how I felt, but they could understand how does it feel to loose something, and they could relate to me in that sense. The most important thing is that my pain was shared. The load of the grieve is too heavy for just one person to carry.
3) Don't rush your process.
It may take you a long time to feel better about it, or maybe never: it's OK. Be patience, we are not machines, we can't force ourselves to feel one way or the other.
4) Accept your pain, appreciate your pain.
Most of my teenage years and even through college I thought my life had been unfair. I had no close friends because I lost the capacity to be intimate with others. What for? Is what my unconscious seemed to be saying. Why did I had to go through all this pain in my life? I felt dis-attached and pointless.
I can't say exactly when, but at some point I stopped asking myself why and started seeing the good things my loss had brought to my life. I am a stronger person because of it, and I appreciate the people around me more than I would if I had taken them for granted. I enjoy the good times, and I know that bad times will pass. I am thankful for a new day, my stable life right now, and my routine is priceless. I also understand human nature better, and how cultural differences affect every little thought we have. I don't underestimate anyone, because I know we all have gone through some loss. I had accepted my loss and with this acceptance a whole understanding of myself was possible. Accepting my loss meant accepting myself.
5) Forgive yourself and others
It is hard not to think about all the actions you could have taken to avoid the loss. You could have fought harder, taken more precautions, been more present. The truth is, you can't do anything about that now. The past is gone and there's no time machine to go back, sorry. You did what you could, with the information you had at that moment, and you are not perfect. The same goes to those you feel deserve to be blamed. In my case, my parents. They did the best they could. They are not perfect. By forgiving myself first I was able to forgive them, and I learned to love them in a new level. As imperfect human beings we all are. And this may sound weird, but when we accept we are imperfect, we become better. In this way my loss has a value. By forgiving myself I can forgive others and if there's anything to learn about all this process is to forgive.
6) Learn to live with your pain.
It will show up in the least expected moment or place. It will come to you when you are in the supermarket comparing prices and a smell, all of a sudden, will make you want to cry. You will cry when someone tells a story in a party because of some weird association in your mind. Doesn't matter. It takes time. It takes all your life. What I do when this happens is letting myself cry or be down for a while. Then I go back to my advice number 4, and I appreciate what I have now. Don't stay there. Move on.
7) Let go.
This may be the summary of all I'm trying to say here.
Let go. Let go of what could have been better and how things would be different now. Let go of guilt, yours and others. Let go of reasons, there are none. Let go of your own story about what happened. It doesn't define you. Let go. It's life. By letting things go you make your loss worthy. It's weird, I know.
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