Can loss be a gift? Loss shows us who we are in ways nothing else can even attempt to bring forward. Through loss we discover what we value, what we long for, what we made an idol of in our life, and what we didn’t cherish enough. Yes, loss can be a gift.
Loss is a great lens that focuses in on our hearts bringing both feels of vulnerability and being completely out of place. No one will escape this life without multiple losses, in things, in time, in talents, in community, in what we love. It is part of what it means to be human. It is something we cannot and should not try to run from.
The choice then is ours. Do we accept this unwanted gift and make the most of it? Or, do we reject the gift and ignore the lessons and potential beauty off the loss?
In accepting the gift of loss we are given an opportunity to more appropriately value what is left in our life, and aline it with the unique purpose in which we are to live. This is not flowery, nor a pipe dream. It is the reality in which we have a choice to live in.
In dementia, we experience losses on a near daily basis. Loses that are so woven into who we are and what we have been able to give to the world and who we have been able to share the world with each day. We experience the actual loss, and the anticipatory loss. The latter being much more tormenting than the loss itself. We must remember, however, that loss is not always a death. Though permanent and life altering, when dementia progresses and we feel the loss of this or that, from abilities to dreams, the person before us is still very much alive. Why must we treat dementia like a death? When we accept the losses of dementia as a gift, we are given second, third, forth, one hundredth chances to continue to love, to give, and to receive. When we phrase dementia as “the long goodbye” although in some ways true, we are choosing not to accept the gift of the person we love. We forget that dementia cannot take the spirit, the soul of any human life.
So, as we work with the losses of life, and remember those who have died, let us make sure we are not including those still alive in the losses of death, and see the beauty in the person before us. Let us embrace the loss that does come for us and rest in thanksgiving for that which we have valued, loved, and are able to do with this great life.