The Art of Losing: Death, Divorce & Finding Joy in the Face of Tragedy

My year of loss was bookended by two deaths.

First was the passing of my grandmother in early spring—the kind of death that feels like an unwelcome but wholly natural conclusion to a long, full life.

In the winter came the passing of my mother—the kind of death that doesn’t just suspend reality, but that changes it for good.

There were nine months in between—months that held the full spectrum of human emotion as I disassembled the pieces of my life and put them back together in an unrecognizable configuration. A life characterized by both stability and tension turned to a life of invigorating uncertainty; a marriage ended, a house changed hands, and a new life was created from scratch.

I kept waiting for it to hit: The crushing realization of all that I’d lost. When would the sense of tragedy catch up to me? Where was the loneliness; the doubt; the regret; the feeling of injustice at having so much wrested away from me all at once?

On the other side of my year of loss, I’ve stopped scanning the horizon for signs of a crippling epiphany headed my way. I’ve learned a lesson that only losing everything can yield: The fear of losing can convince you that when the time comes to let go, you won’t make it through. But it’s the anticipation of loss—the fruitless attempts to keep it from happening, and the refusal to accept it once it’s happened—that’s unbearable, not the reality of loss itself.

Since I lost my mother, I’ve had the same dream again and again. The circumstances change, but the theme remains the same: It’s up to me to prevent the inevitable from happening. No matter which tactics I try, of course, I lose her again. But though I wake up in a cold sweat each time, a small part of me feels relieved: I can’t outsmart fate. There’s no action I could have taken to reach a different ending. She was with us for exactly as long as she wanted to be; and to feel regret is to insist that I have control over forces so vast that I could never begin to comprehend them.

There’s a paradoxical freedom in facing your worst case scenario head-on and surviving—in trusting that transformational change has the potential to bring something better than you’ve left behind; and that even if it doesn’t, you know now that you can handle it.

For years, when I looked at my grandmother, I saw a person whose existence was forever overshadowed by tragedy: The death of her husband nearly three decades before her own. Having to go on living after losing the love of her life was unthinkable to me—and not just living, but spending her days completely on her own. How did she pass the hours? I often wondered. How was she able to create a life so full of joy and fulfillment after something so unfair, so undeniably tragic, had happened to her?

The realization came after I had experienced the realities of marriage for myself—the compromises, large and small, that shape your life and your identity to complement someone else’s. This kind of partnership, I realized, is as much about sacrifice as it is about fulfillment—and sometimes, the sacrifices made far outweigh the fulfillment that lifelong love can bring.

Part of me came to envy the years that my grandmother had had to herself—to decide how she wanted to spend her time, unencumbered by another person’s desires.

When my mother left us after a decades-long struggle with chronic pain, I understood that it was okay for my father’s overwhelming sadness to be tinged with a tiny bit of gratitude that he can now spend the remainder of his life in whatever way he chooses.

I’ve come to understand that there’s a paradox inside of every emotion. All happiness is bittersweet; even the most joyful commitment involves closing the door on all of the other lives that you could have had. But joy is felt most keenly after pain gives it new depth; and every tragedy contains a glint of sunlight for those who are willing to see it.

Part of what this means is that it’s our responsibility to seek out joy in every circumstance, rather than waiting for it to find us. Daring to feel joy in the face of tragedy feels radical, almost subversive. But it isn’t denying loss the gravitas that it warrants—it’s allowing a profound experience to shape the person that we become in a positive way. It’s realizing that we have the power to decide what kind of story we tell ourselves—the story of being wracked by unfair and uncontrollable tragedy, versus the story of creating a more fulfilling life when tragedy has reminded us just how fragile and impermanent life is.

Ultimately, it’s this ability—to allow a chapter of losing to take the form of a chapter of becoming—that makes it possible for new happiness to take root in our lives.

Building a new life from scratch is overwhelming. It requires sifting through mountains of paperwork at the same time that you’re sifting through memories with a new perspective of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ But the rare, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape your life around the things that bring you joy and fulfillment is as worthy of gratitude as it is fear.

After giving myself permission to let go of the life I’d poured so much of myself into, I realized that I could only create the kind of existence I had always wanted by being more intentional than ever before about the things I allowed to enter it. Through trial and error, I taught myself how to balance openness with strong boundaries. I learned the value of being happy on my own so that I could ultimately find lasting love based on more than a fear of being alone. I continually reminded myself that there’s a difference between a person who’s interested in me and a person who’s worthy of my time and emotion and vulnerability. And when I met someone who understood that distinction, I recognized him right away.

On the first date with the love of my new life, I explained that I wasn’t looking to simply meld my life with someone else’s. I had reached all of the milestones that the younger me had self-consciously strived for—the oversized house, the impeccably planned wedding, the impressive but unnecessary graduate degree. What I wanted now was to share the life that I loved with someone who loved their own life just as much—someone with whom I could grow in parallel, challenging and supporting each other in evolving in a positive direction.

I didn’t want to fit my belongings into someone else’s apartment, or shape my priorities around someone else’s schedule, or dilute my personality and opinions in deference to someone else’s. I didn’t want to adopt someone else’s last name, or their aspirations. I wanted to be loved in the way that I knew how to love: As an equal partner whose goals and whose complex, nuanced self were worthy of recognition and unconditional devotion.

The happiness I feel now is the result of yet another paradox: Learning to recognize the joy and importance of being alone is what has allowed a healthy, fulfilling relationship to form and thrive in my life. Letting go of relationships that no longer serve us—and realizing that the anticipation of letting go is worse than the reality of doing it—is what allows us to be vulnerable with someone new. Recognizing the beauty of two self-sufficient individuals sharing their lives with one another other—not because they need to, but because they choose to—is what creates a fulfilling partnership.

At the close of my chapter of loss, I found myself at the rim of the Grand Canyon, my feet millimeters from the outer edge. I stood toe-to-toe with the paradox that we all inhabit each day, breathing in its beauty: That it’s our inevitable mortality that makes the time that we get to spend together so precious. That heartbreak enables us to experience the full depth and complexity of the happiness we eventually find; and though we wish we could have found it sooner, we’re able to appreciate it because of the life-changing devastation we’ve endured. That the art of losing means allowing ourselves to feel immense gratitude for things while we have them, without being ruled by the knowledge that we’ll inevitably lose them.

I stared out at the vast space that contained both life and death, intimately and inextricably connected with each other. I recognized the thin and vulnerable line between having and losing everything. The farther from the ground I climbed, the more hazardous the vantage point, the more breathtaking the beauty became.

Eventually, sensing the nervous gaze of the one who loves me, I returned to reality. I could feel him willing me back to him with all of his might, his happiness irreparably entangled with mine.

I turned my back on my worst fears, having negotiated directly with them once again and survived. I promised myself to allow the inevitability of loss to make me love more fiercely and fearlessly, holding nothing back, even knowing full well how all things end. Then I took his hand and stepped back into safety, and we continued on our journey up the canyon.

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