Some Thoughts on Loss

...and how to write the story of what comes after

In any honest exploration of loss, I think the thing to focus on, ultimately, is the loss of the story associated with whatever is now gone, and the loss of the identity associated with that story. With every loss, we lose something of who we believed we were. After a loss, we have to rewrite the story of who we are, and the automatic impulse is to make the new story smaller than the previous one—to make ourselves less than we were, to make the new world a diminished version of the old one.

But the mere existence of the butterfly teaches us something else is possible. The new story can be larger and more magnificent than the one we are losing, even though that loss is painful, and we are sad to see it go. It is right, and even necessary, to grieve it. But the fact we are sad to see it go does not mean the next iteration of our lives cannot be better, richer and more magnificent than anything we've known before.

Saying yes to the possibility of a better future is not a betrayal of the story we are leaving behind, any more than going to university is a betrayal of your experience as a high school student. One gives birth to the next, and even though the high school identity must be let go, it remains a part of the larger story of who you have been, and who you are becoming.

All of these principles apply not only to individuals, but also to nations, even to our species as a whole, as we are now, as a species, in a time of loss, and grieving, and (we hope) new birth.

This is the core of it:

Loss is the collapse of the old story, and with it, the loss or death of who you have been, or thought you were. This loss must be named, and grieved. But in your grief, you must be careful not to curse the new story as evil or wrong, or doomed to be less than what has come before. You must avoid the temptation to define your new story by the loss of the old. 

It is much better to…

• Let the new story emerge organically.

• Craft the new story in the most life-affirming way possible.

• Craft the new story in a way that can hold your new reality and allow for every possibility of joy and meaning.

• Craft the new story in a way that preserves the lessons and wisdom of the old story.

• Craft the new story in a way that courageously aligns to the actual facts of your life now as you know them to be.

The crafting of a new story is a dance, not a linear construction project. You have to be willing to stay in the disorientation of "I don't know”—the place where anything is possible—for as long as it is necessary for the new story to emerge, rather than be forced.