Living With the Loss...

Intensive Care Unit; they call it ICU, in short. The monitor that shows heartbeat rate, oxygen level and blood pressure keeps making beep sounds whenever the readings go lesser or more than the normal range. A father, whose lungs had inhaled tonnes of oxygen, is now finding it difficult to breathe. So an oxygen mask tries to do its job. His heart, which has beaten a couple of billion times throughout life restlessly, is now finding it difficult to pump the blood.

His son looks at those fluctuating numbers on the monitor; feeling hopeful whenever the green light flashes indicating that the readings are normal and feeling worried when the deadly beep sounds come out. Hope? Fear? Sadness? Relief? Confusion? Worry? His heart is filled with a mix of all emotions. He tries to keep himself calm. He tells the best possible lies to his father that everything is under control. The father acts as though he believes the words of his son and gives an artificial smile. How beautiful those lies are!

Then the dirty truth - the Death exposes itself after some time. Doctors try to hide their inability, limitations and helplessness by giving an explanation in their useless medical terms. For the doctors and the hospitals, it’s just a casualty. For some friends and relatives, it’s just a death followed by an RIP wish. For the son and the loved ones, it’s an unfilled vacuum, an endless blankness and an irrecoverable loss. There joins a lifetime company called ‘loss’.

Most of us, no, all of us undergo losses in life. It doesn’t need big philosophies or spiritual sense to make or understand such statements. We all have gained in our life. So, we definitely undergo the losses too. The first thing we get is life and that’s the last thing we lose. We get people, relationships, money, positions, popularity, success – we lose some of them, sometimes fully and sometimes partially. Some of them are replaced after losing and some of the losses are irreplaceable.

How do we handle these losses? How do we react to them?

Money, job, wealth and most of such materialistic aspects are recoverable. Although they create pain when earned with hard work, when lost, we still have hope that we can get them back. Sometimes we feel it’s too late to earn them back once lost, but our tricky mind makes us forget such losses sooner compared to the other losses. A job is secured if you are intelligent and skilful. Your wealth is insured if you're paying your premiums. They are recoverable.

Relationship, trust and other emotional and ethical aspects, after we lose them are possibly recoverable even if they take time. Sometimes they just can’t be fixed. Sometimes life gives replacements. If someone doesn’t deserve your love and trust, at least you have an explanation for losing them. If you don’t deserve to be loved and trusted by others, your guilt is the answer.

But there are other losses that are absolutely irrecoverable. The doctor shows a straight line on the ECG and tells that the heart that was beating every moment drawing spikes and dips has now stopped and your loved one is no more. That’s an irrecoverable loss. It’s a full stop for all the hopes and efforts to save, all the talks and laughter, all the caring and sharing. It’s just the ugliest geometrical shape – the straight line.

The best way to handle such loss is not to plan any way to handle it. Let the sorrow sink to the deepest into your system. Let your system accept the loss. It should be a state of no questions, no possibilities, no remedies to come out of that loss, no attempt to overcome the pain. Allow the pain to do its job; don’t try to curb it. Let silence establish its kingdom; don’t make noise with anger against adversities of life.

Pain and silence should be given their own value and respect. When we have lost our loved one and when that loss had brought pain and silence, isn’t it disrespectful if we do not value or allow that pain’s existence? Let’s not treat such noble pain like our silly and stupid mistakes. Pain is not a problem, so don't try to seek solution to it.

Most of the times, we treat our pains like our failures and mistakes. We should remember that pain is an emotional process and failure is intellectual. It makes sense to find the reason for failure and to identify what or who contributed to the failure. That helps in correcting and getting success next time. But such losses have no next time; pain is not intellectual and is not meant to analyze, correct or come out of. It should be accepted and felt to its fullest extent.

Some of us seek the shelter of intoxicants to come out of the pain. Some of us think of taking revenge on someone who caused the pain. Some of us blame and some of us just immerse ourselves in thinking what could have been done to avoid the pain. All these are just our attempts to come out of the loss. But whatever was so precious and lost will not come back. So we should learn to live with the loss.

Living with the loss is all about being grateful to the person or the relationship that enriched our life. It’s all about rejoicing the wonderful memories and moments that filled our life with joy and that added so much value to our life. I know it hurts to remember all that doesn’t exist anymore and will never happen again, but isn’t it wise and more meaningful to be grateful to the life and loved one who filled our life with unforgettable moments!

All of us may not be so spiritual not to care about the physical presence and to accept the loss, but we always have the choice to live with the sweet memories and great values we have created for rest of the life.

The best way to accept the loss is to refuse the loss.