Excerpt from The Infinite Thread: Healing Relationships Beyond Loss By Alexandra Kennedy
I am feeling a heavy heart today as I return home from my son’s college campus, where I helped him move into his apartment for his second year. I know the time is coming when he will not return home from college for the summer. Last year when we left him I cried all the way back from Los Angeles. I sobbed for the ending of my relationship with my son as it had been, of our family as it had been, for the absence of his daily presence in my life.
At mid-life, I’ve lost my father and face the loss of my mother who at 86 grows increasingly frail and forgetful. She’s been falling lately. The last fall left her hospitalized for weeks. In addition, four of my friends are struggling with life-threatening illnesses, once again forcing me to let go of the persistent illusion that we can control our lives. In an instant the course of our lives can change. This is terrifying. I feel vulnerable and at times frightened by the magnitude of daily loss at this stage of life. Ironically, I have never felt more alive.
Over a lifetime we will experience many losses. We live by losing, leaving and letting go. These are essential parts of the ever-changing world, as much a part of life as night, wind and rain. We cannot save ourselves, nor those we love, from the sorrow that is part of life. Parents die, friends drop away, cherished possessions are lost. Our children grow up and leave home. We lose spouses and partners to divorce or death; sometimes we lose them emotionally long before. As we age, we will confront all that we never were or never will be. We will be faced with the grief of unfulfilled dreams. With each major loss, we often encounter multiple losses. For example, the death of a parent can lead to many other losses—of our identity as their child, of our family history, and sometimes of friends as they retreat from the intensity of our grief. Losing a job can lead to the loss of self-confidence, identity, and power. A miscarriage or infertility can bring about the loss of the dream of having a family. A divorce can result in the loss of a lifestyle, home, friends, and identity.
