The art of loss, revisted

‘The art of losing isn’t hard to master’, or so says poet Elizabeth Bishop in her well-loved ‘One Art’. I’ve referenced this poem before, and if you haven’t read the poem – do. It’s a quick-witted and poignant reflection on the death of a partner that likens griefs great and small. And the unifying thread is that loss is an art that we master (or don’t).

Recently, I had the genuine pleasure of hearing an insight that a young person had learned from reality television.

‘I saw craziest thing last night,’ they said in a hushed tone.

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘Yeah. There was this woman who was forty, but she looked really good, like, thirty. But then her dad died in a real bad a way, and within a few years, she looked like she was sixty, or worse,’ they said. They ended their reflection by saying, ‘Of course, who knows if you should believe it? It’s just reality television.’

There was so much I wanted to say to them, starting with the fact that I absolutely believe that story. It’s the real thing I’ve heard from reality television.

I’ve seen it myself. When I look through old photos of myself and my loved ones, I can usually pinpoint a date on either side of a loss.

This is the face of someone who has yet to lose their mother. This is not.

These are the eyes of someone who has found a spouse lying on the floor of the kitchen. These are not.

This is what a family looks like if their house has never burned in a fire. This is not.

A loved one dies, and you wonder, ‘How will I ever live without them? How will I endure?’ And for me, these photos are evidence that we don’t – at least not in our present form. It is different you, a different me, who steps out into the new and terrible world. It is a different version of ourselves that travels on the road of grief; transformed and transforming again and again. And so perhaps we may (or may not) master the art of losing, but, certainly, the art of losing masters *us*, so that we may become the ones who can endure. And we have. If you are reading this now, you have endured.

Of course, I didn’t share any of this with the young person who told me about the reality television program. There’s no need to for any of us to learn the painful truths before we must, and some arts – like loss – should only be practiced when necessary. But it gave me a sure sense of comfort to remember that we don’t practice this art alone – and that at the moment we think we can’t master another loss, we may, at that very moment, be changed into a person who can.