Losing

My sister always said that I need a keeper because I lose things. Papers that I need to review or send to someone. Shoes. Receipts. Books. Cell phone – especially, the cell phone! Truth be told – I DO lose things. Well, sometimes, I think I have not lost those things. You know that I have a ghost Jenny who lives with me, apparently with the capability of hiding material objects. Now, don’t go thinking I’ve lost my mind. I do have a ghost. Sometimes, when I look for something and can’t find it, I say aloud to Jenny that if she doesn’t get it back to me, she has to leave my house, never to return. Usually, the hidden thing is returned in a few hours.

In the event you may think this ghost is “all in my head,” let me reassure you that others have searched for the missing thing, looking in the same places as I without finding it. Then, in a few hours or a day, that missing thing is no longer missing; it is found in one of those places where all of us have looked. So, no. I’m not crazy, hallucinating, pretending, out of my mind. I DO HAVE A GHOST!

But, ghosts are not what this blog is about. It is about losing. Losing things. Losing loves. Losing.

When someone that we know dies, we say that – we’ve lost them. I submit that we did not lose the person at all. Rather what we lose when a person dies is their friendship. Their love, although we don’t stop loving them. We lose the times we’ve been together – good or bad. We lose their humor, their caring, their obstinance. We lose the closeness with them. We lose their advice – also good or bad.

There are instances when a decades – long relationship ends. We have lost that relationship. We’ve lost their caring, comfort, shared hopes and dreams, discussions, arguments. And, it often hurts to lose such a person from our lives.

I do often lose my cell phone. It has a place in my pocket. But, some of the pockets in my pants are not really large enough to hold the phone, which, itself, is rather large. So, it ends up somewhere that is not my pocket. I have another phone – a landline. The sole purpose for that phone is to locate the cell phone. I do not answer the landline when it rings. I do not listen to messages left on it, even though my message to callers is “don’t leave a message – it will not be answered.” When my cell phone is missing, I use the landline to call the number. And, there it is – in the kitchen, or the bedroom, or bath. When I don’t hear it ring in the house, I know I’ve left it in the car at the end of my last excursion away from home. My landline is my lifeline to my cell. An important piece of equipment serving my daily life.

We lose a contest, an election, an opportunity to improve our work lives. We go on living because those loses, while devastating, are not life threatening.

When an epic storm hits a location, destruction caused by the storm creates incredible loss for the residents of that place. We see the images on our television screens and give thanks that those are not images of our homes, schools, businesses – whole towns. We silently mourn the loss of life, feeling helpless that we can do nothing about that loss.

There are times, such as the one that I’m in with changing the date of a scheduled surgery, having to rearrange my entire life for that a second time, speculating on what the result of the surgery will be, how long will it take to recover – that it seems I’m losing my mind. Difficult times, but I know that I’ll get through the event and be back to normal (whatever that really is) as soon as possible.

And, so, Dear Readers, I hope not to lose you. I want you to stay with me through “thick or thin.” And, as always, let me know what you think.

Be Safe and Be Well
The Cranky Crone
Thoughtful comments are always welcome.