I was talking with someone the other day who is dealing with a new loss. They told me they had read somewhere to ask yourself the following question to help put things into perspective. I will use my mom’s death and my vision loss to demonstrate:
If I knew I would have just 47 years with my mom and just 47 years of full eyesight, would I say “no thanks” and not have had them at all?
The answer, of course, is no. My second thought, if I remove the emotion, is that 47 years is a long time. But when you love someone, even an entire lifetime is not enough. And as for a physical ability, living without one now I would have to say the same thing. Not. Enough.
It is the Circle of Life that we should lose our parents but I have found it to be incredibly difficult and dare I say, unacceptable. The moment Mom took her last breath I could not conceive of living the rest of my life without her. As for my vision, there was no precedent for waking up blind nor warning. I am grateful to have seen so much before that morning, but I have thought, on occasion, how different my experience would have been had I been born legally blind versus knowing what I’ve lost.
I don’t know if this way of looking at what you have lost is helpful but I thought I would share it. Just like our grief, the healing process is unique to all of us. What connects us, though, is that life goes on after loss, no matter how many years you had, have passed or it has taken for us not to miss what is gone so much you can hardly breathe. Whatever your time variables, maybe this question will offer you a new point of view. Forty-seven years was not enough for me. But if this post offers comfort to just one, that will be enough.