Between our first inhale at birth and our last exhale at death, some part of us is always dying…

When I was a child and Dad’s military career took most of my immediate family (excluding my oldest brother and sister, Cindy) from Canada to Europe, a world died. (Those who leave their native land to take up a new life in a new country know about this.) The same thing happened when we relocated to a new city or from one part of town to another (whether within Europe or later when we returned to Canada)—a lot of the people we had seen every day, we never saw again, as surely as if they were dead.

And when I graduated from school and left home and later changed jobs and careers and moved and married and had children and did things I would rather not have…well, those changes were all wrapped up in deaths AND revivals—part of my past died each time, but each time I gained something (even if I didn’t “see” or understand the positive at the time).

It was the same when my sister died—I questioned my religious and philosophical views and revised them. And when I experienced the inquest into her death and the related meetings with members of the law enforcement, judicial and medical systems, my political and societal convictions changed. And when I felt “alone”, even within my family relationships, thinking nobody could possibly understand what I was feeling and I thought the feeling of loss would NEVER go away…as hard as it was, I looked inward. And I grew. And it got “better” eventually. And I even learned to have fun and smile and laugh again.

When loves ends, whether it’s your first mad romance of adolescence, the love that will not sustain a marriage and leads to divorce, or the love of a failed friendship, it is the same—a death.

Likewise in the event of a miscarriage or an abortion: a possibility is dead. And there is no public or even private funeral. Sometimes only regret and nostalgia mark the passage. And the last rites are held in the solitude of one’s most secret self—a service of mourning in the recesses of the soul.

If you have experienced a loss (and who of us hasn’t?), ask yourself if you are “stuck” in the loss thinking, “I’ll simply feel this way forever.” Have you lost confidence in your resiliency? Remember, life is about choices.

We all need to be able to separate and still feel whole and satisfied with ourselves and with those people and events and things from whom we part.

If time has passed and you constantly focus on the thing/person/event you’ve lost, you’ll never be able to see or appreciate the people or the things or the events that are still with you that can enrich your life now if you leave yourself open to them.

I know this must be difficult for you.

But for the moment, here, now, and again tomorrow and the next day, I ask you to consider opening your eyes and seeing what is before you.

Your loss is not a personal assault against you!

Embrace what you have.

Go ahead…try it!

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James