Beautiful old broads and loss

Hello Dear Ones,

First I said it out loud.  Then I wrote it down in rounded firm letters.  Accept Loss.  Two words but oh so powerful.  They convey so much.  I rolled them about in my mind contemplating the idea.  We humans like our stuff, like our routines, like our life ordered the way we expect.  Then something or someone comes along and poof…we are forced to accept change, accept loss.

As I think on accepting loss, it’s obvious we are constantly losing things.  Painful yet part of the journey through life.  Small things are easy to accept.  Losing a key or a package.  Not life changing.  But when you lose a mother or father, when you lose a sibling or the person you love, that’s the loss that’s wrenching.  That is a forever loss.

Growing old, the losses pile up like leaves blowing though our lives.  We notice our sight is not so keen and perhaps we’ve slowed our gait.  And I’m always saying “pardon me”, for my hearing is declining.  Not to mention our teeth and our knees and our backs.  No use in railing about it or going on over it.  Life chugs along doing what it has done for billions of years. Moving on.

The thing is…what has come into our lives like love and joy and kindness can’t be taken away from us.  Nope.  Time may get my knees and my teeth but love and friendship can’t be erased.

So we inch along the path and try to stay upbeat and positive and all those things but I still can’t abide that cheery person who tells me that everything happens for a purpose and look on the bright side.  Okay so we beautiful old broads have to accept loss but we’re entitled to a pity party now and then aren’t we?

“We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength.  These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life.”                         Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.