“Spend less time mourning your friend and instead go ahead and make one.”
“You have buried someone you love. Now look for someone to love.”
Seneca’s notes on loss resonated deeply.
I was reminded of a post I wrote a while back on a similar theme. It was called “Mourn them not. Miss them not. Celebrate them do.” I looked it up to realize that post was written a full decade ago.
I had two reactions – holy moly, that’s a long time ago. And, it is amazing how fresh the idea was despite being a decade ago.
It was around that time that I had gotten to better understand the nature of loss. By then, I had seen up close how different responses to a loss can be from folks within the same family. I had also experienced the after-effects of these responses for a decade.
The conclusion I came to was the same as Seneca’s (or the Jedi order – whichever you prefer). After the initial period of grief and mourning, folks who used the pain from the loss to inspire themselves to be grateful for the people around them transformed how they lived their lives. Folks who didn’t were stuck in a rut of denial and self pity.
“Spend less time mourning your friend and instead go ahead and make one.”
It is a powerful idea.
We don’t talk about dealing with loss enough.
