Weathering Loss
You know you're getting older when you're told to slow down by your doctor, instead of by the police. —Joan Rivers
Although aging brings us new opportunities and insights, it also brings losses. And the list of those potential losses is discouragingly long. It includes loss of physical abilities, of property, of people and relationships, along with mental and emotional losses. And each of these categories has multiple examples.
That’s the bad news. Here are the silver linings. Not all older people experience all possible kinds of loss. And losses don’t come all at once; they often accumulate gradually. By the time we reach our senior years, we have probably had significant practice at coping with loss. When I married, I lost a certain independence. When I had infants and toddlers, I lost my weekends off. One loss was monumental: Six years ago my youngest son died of an opiate overdose.
Perhaps, remembering those past losses, we can gather strength to deal with life’s current losses as well. Adjusting may require some grieving, but I have learned tears are the pressure valve that releases sadness, anxiety, and even fear. After sessions of tears over the loss of my son, I had more strength to walk through the next steps in a day. As months passed by, I gradually learned that it is possible to be happy again, even after loss. Life did not need to be perfect to include joy. As Karl Pillemer said, “We learn to be happy in spite of, not happy if only.”
If we allow it, pain can produce growth. It doesn’t happen immediately. It doesn’t justify the pain or make it go away, but it is growth nonetheless. Pain can soften our hearts and make us more sensitive to the sufferings of others. Pain can humble us so that we realize our need for others. Pain can make us vulnerable and open to being loved.
But pain and loss do not automatically produce growth. They can make us bitter or they can make us better. We have a choice. That principle is essential for Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning.
Frankl did not just spin theory. He lived with great loss as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. His mother, father, brother, and wife all died in the camps. His captors took from him almost every element of personal value and human dignity.
The only thing they were not able to take was his choice of how to respond. He described that response as “the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Chronic pain treatment focuses on the difference between pain and suffering. Some pain is unavoidable, but suffering can be avoided. Suffering occurs when we think Why me? This is more than I can bear. This is terrible. We can make the choice not to suffer. We can radically accept the life we are given.
Six years ago, when I discussed my son’s addictions with my therapist, she asked me, “If the worst possible thing happened, could you survive?”
I paused for a long time and said slowly, “I think I could. It would hurt like hell, but I think I could.” I had survived giving birth to a stillborn son, and eventually found joy in spite of loss. I trusted I would be given strength to survive whatever pain the future might hold. And over time I did receive that strength.
Mary Pipher says in Women Rowing North, “Great personal suffering can sometimes deepen our souls to the point they crack open and let in great beauty.”
She says that when our hearts crack open we identify with all who have suffered, that we pray not only for ourselves, but for everyone who has suffered. She adds that happiness doesn’t happen because we are problem-free but because we have learned to be present to the moment.
She concludes, “Yet, in spite of our situations, whatever they are, we all can have our days when we feel like a three-legged cat, drenched in sunlight.”
As we age, we may be like three-legged cats, but we can take pleasure in the warmth and beauty of the sun.
Adapted from Creative Aging by Carol Van Klompenburg, available from Amazon.