A Year of Loss
If you ask me about 2022, the first word that comes to mind is loss.
I lost money in my crypto account.
I lost money in my retirement account.
I lost a few pounds, and I lost my car in the
parking lot, not once but several times.
Some losses are small and not important. I can recover from financial losses, I will probably gain the pounds back, and I will eventually find my car in the parking lot. Other losses hurt deep and stay with you forever.
I lost a grandchild in 2022. When our youngest son and daughter-in-law first started talking about children, I didn’t think much about it, telling them not to be in hurry. As time went on, and on, it became apparent that it wasn’t happening. Like so many couples, they started the very expensive and very difficult process of dealing with infertility which finally led them to IVF. With only one fertilized egg, we thought our prayers had been answered and we celebrated the “miracle baby.” I was so excited that even though I knew it was too early, I told everyone, and for a few days I felt like a grandmother. I even talked about quitting my job to help with childcare only to find out that she had a miscarriage. As my daughter-in-law said, “It's so painful to want something so bad for 8 years to finally get it just to lose it.” This loss hit me a lot harder than I expected as our rejoicing quickly changed to sadness and grief. I’ve never had a miscarriage, so this was the closest I had ever been to understanding the grief that comes with losing a child.
I lost my mother in 2022. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how old they are, it’s never easy losing a parent. Putting her in the nursing home was the hardest thing we ever did, and she hated us for it. We thought it would be temporary as my sister continued building onto her house and getting a space ready for mom to move in. Everything went downhill quick. As dementia set in, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital twice to medicate her and calm her down. It was rough and although I will always question our decisions, I know my sister and I did the best we could. My Sunday afternoon phone calls with my mom were gone and she was gone. Even though she couldn’t understand where she was while in the nursing home, she always knew who we were. She loved us well up until the very end and even after when we opened the letter, she had left us. I have a lot of regrets when it comes to my mom but without a doubt, I know and I understand how much both my parents loved me.
I lost a relationship in 2022. Hurtful words were
shared, and a lifetime relationship was torn down in a matter of days. The pain
of not even a phone call on Christmas Day is a hard one to recover from. However,
if there is one thing I learned from my mother, the loneliness and sadness is
real but you can’t make someone visit, pick up the phone and call, send a card, buy a
gift, or even acknowledge your existence. You can forgive someone and you can pray for someone, but you can’t
force a relationship. Family is
forever whether you like it or not. I pray for healing, but I don't know if it will ever happen.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ~CS Lewis
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