When we lose someone we love, we don’t only lose the person who passed away. Collateral loss occurs in our social circles in strange and unpredictable ways. I was shocked by the full extent of what I lost after my daughter died.
These loses came in many forms. There were the people who sent offers of “anything I can do,” who then failed to return the messages I left on their voicemail, as if tragedy might be contagious. There were those who “didn’t know what to say” and instead of risking discomfort, became silent and distant. There were one-way relationships that collapsed in upon themselves when I no longer had the energy to sustain them by continually giving.
And as I surveyed the destruction around me, I became all the more grateful for those people in my life who reached out to me and who were willing to endure the dark, desolate, uncomfortable conditions left behind by Death.
Who are the people who have supported you in your grief? Who has stood by you, even when you had very little to give and weren’t any fun to be around? Have you let those people know that you appreciated them? How? Feel free to give them a shout out here.
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