Even as I Lost, I Found

I came across a quote that is attributed to Tennessee Williams. It made me think about many things. Most significantly, it made me think about the passage of time, as one is fording the river of loss.

 “Time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the of the clock is loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to it’s opposition.”

As a teenager, I discovered words through the power of Williams’ writing. I loved his prose and the expression of longing it contained. He so beautifully put universal concepts into the world for us to consider. As I read his work, it seemed that we all ached with want and with degrees of sorrow.

This is the kind of the passage I would have thought that I understood, had I read it then.

But of course, I would not have. While I like the aspirational quality in this passage I don’t entirely agree with the tone. There are many hard-won gifts in loss.

Similarly to you all, I have tried to find ways to integrate the grief that followed the loss of my son in 2005.

I have often wondered whether I can even remember who I was prior to his death. I have sometimes tried to imagine myself the day before. Times felts simpler. I suppose there was a dearness to that innocence.

The out-of-order death of my son certainly made me consider the notion of time. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, it made me reconsider the issue of time and the mysteries it may hold. I was seized by an absolute desire to understand how time progressed and whether there was any aspect of it that was redeemable. Was this magical thinking? I’ll never be sure.

In the loss of my son, there was a vanishing.

Of course there was a vanishing.

I felt diminished and frightened. I felt as though my body had betrayed me.

But there was more than loss too.

There was an exquisitely painful reexamination of my life. So even as the clock ticked out loss, loss, loss I wanted to be searching. I wanted to find things. It was the hardest thing in the world to do – to sit and steep in the powerful tsunami of fear I harbored.

Even as I lost, I found.

I found a sense of purpose.

I found a sense of belonging that came from reading articles and hearing stories from people. I found the sorts of people who are reading this now – those who do not flinch from painful truth to do with the agony of loss.

I found inspiration from a community of people I had not ever met in person but who filled by sense of new belonging.

I found that in loss, a painful growth occurs. It is pain to be sure, but there are aspects of mysteriousness and comprehension.

I have been so humbled by the stories I have had the honor to hear over the last decade.

I have found that the only thing harder than facing grief is turning away from it. You all taught me that.

And I will never be able to thank you enough for that kindness.