On Love and Loss

I’ve gone through some pretty dark times this year, including a spell of the most brutal sadness that I’ve ever known - a debilitating, breath-defying brokenness.

When you lose a love, there’s so much else you lose along with it. Like music…you can’t listen to the radio or your i-pod when you lose your love, for every song cuts to the very quick. Something as simple as going to the movies or even to familiar places on the heels of lost love is only an invitation to even deeper despair.

During such a darkness, it seems that everyone you pass has to ask, “How are you?” And who can find the words with which to respond? As an English teacher, when I lack the words to express my deepest feelings, I often find myself turning to the world of literature . Though it just about killed me when I came upon these words for the first time at the end of Muriel Barbery’s masterpiece, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I am eternally grateful that someone said what my heart hasn’t been able to utter.

The context is that one of the two main characters of the book, a very isolated, misunderstood, brilliant, suicidal teenager, loses a dear friend…

“For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it’s really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don’t really know what you’re saying until you’re faced with a real “never again.” Ultimately you always have the illusion that you’re in control of what’s happening; nothing seems definitive…But when someone you love dies (or leaves for good)…well, I can tell you that you really feel what “never” means, and it really hurts. It’s like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black. I feel alone, and sick, and my heart aches and every moment seems to require a colossal effort.”

Too often we forget the real grief is physical - not emotional. True gut-wrenching loss creates nausea, shortness of breath, deep, constant, and inescapable pain, which is why when people try to comfort their grieving friends with words it never works. Words can't relieve physical pain.

But that being said, the next dark time I'm called upon to give words to how I'm doing, I’ll find a way to choke out these words from Muriel Barbery.