About Loss

by The Flamingo

In this era of mental health awareness, people tend to be more introspective in order to find out what issues they are having and how to solve them. We are more conscious than our parents and grandparents before us of our turmoils, of what exactly triggers them and of the consequences following them. We understand more about the origins of our sadness and how to manage it. I think all people have something broken inside them, some more so than others. We all have some mental health issues in this era of ours, provoked by different traumas in our lives.

This article is about one of the most important triggers of depression…loss. In my case this is a constant feeling I’m battling with for some years now. How can I overcome loss? This particular subject is a sensitive one which I am not ready to share. Enough to say that I’ve known loss in many forms in quite a short period of time.

I saw many recent movies that tackle the subject of loss, but what impressed me the most is that Disney began introducing this subject in different animations and live action films (I am exposed to way too much Disney because of my young son). It’s the beginning of a conversation about how to bring awareness to kids about loss and how to handle it. Because everybody suffers loss, no matter the age. So we have to be well equipped to handle it and not let it drive us down the darkest pit. 

There’s a song in “Mary Poppins returns” sung by Emily Blunt called “The place where the lost things go”. It’s truly the saddest song for me personally, because it hits so close to home. It’s sort of a lullaby that caresses the troubled soul, whispering that nothing is really lost and you can always find it in your memories: people, places, home, passions, relationships, things… I came upon another song recently (because Disney’s best way to express feelings is through songs), the lullaby in Frozen 2. Here the place for lost things is metaphorically described as a river with clean waters in which you dive down to find everything that you lost. But it also warns you against diving too deep for “you’ll be drowned”. 

For me, going down memory lane to that place where I can find all my lost things has been soothing, especially in that moment between being awake and falling asleep, where I lose some consciousness and I don’t grieve. I just experience the warmth of those memories. Going to that place when I’m fully awake, is with ups and downs. Clearly, living in the past is not an option. Also forgetting everything and pushing all the loss in a dark corner covered with ten blankets is also not a solution. 

So the question still remains…how to handle loss? In my case, it’s still there, whatever new memories I make, or happy thoughts I have. I can only hope that time solves everything and the loss gets less and less painful. Of course, this depends a lot on the person’s character. There are people who get through loss quicker than others. There is no correct way to do it, also no specific time to get over it. Each person is unique, each loss is very personal and unique as well. After going through all the stages of grief, what remains is acceptance and of course support from the people I love. 

This is the hardest thing I’ve worked on, with the exception of motherhood. Accepting my losses and going on with my life without grieving is the silver lining for me. I truly hope everything is for the best. In the meantime, all I can do is a step at a time, hoping it’s “the next right thing”. 

Photo by Karim Manjra, Unspalsh.