You Will Lose
Loss. It ain’t great.
I am currently in the crazy “young growing family” stage of life, not typically a stage that is associated with “loss”. However, we are constantly experiencing loss.
This year, I lost my four year old son, because he turned five.
My two year old daughter is already talking about her lama-themed birthday party (her birthday is still a few months out) It’s just a matter of time before I will have forever lost the experience of being her parent when she is two.
Occasionally, when I watch the kids playing, I feel a touch of sadness or nostalgia. I will never get to be a child again. Never.
Modern medicine and science have done a pretty good job of convincing us that death is all but avoidable. Anti-aging creams. Medicines that will keep you going. Hospitals that will hook you up to a thousand tubes and wires to extend life. Anything… ANYTHING, to keep us breathing.
Don’t get me wrong, those options are not bad, necessarily. Don’t believe the lie though that with enough money and focus, you can become or stay healthy and young. You will lose those too.
Ok, bear with me… this isn’t a post about grief… or making a list about the things you’ve lost so that you can “work through them”. This is a call to action!
There is some evidence that cultures that embrace loss are happier than cultures that try to whitewash it. Embrace it.
“I better make the most of it”
For example: I will 100% lose my two year old daughter, because she will soon be a 3 year old. When I live my life with that knowledge as a backdrop, it becomes much easier to stop and listen to her questions. Or just to enjoy her crazy antics. This is a once in a lifetime stage of life… literally. I only have a few months left to live life when my oldest daughter is two, I better make the most of it.
“Embrace your now, and the people who are in it”
Is this melodramatic? Maybe a touch. The point isn’t to live in fear and constant dread of loss. Instead, embrace the people and the stage of life you have, while we have them.
Turn off the phone, the news, the podcast. Those are almost all unimportant in the long run. Embrace your now, and the people who are in it. Because you will 100% lose them too, and time is wasting.
