Day 36 Loss Part 2 Loss and Gains

When we are able to, we can eventually see that we can never have a loss without some form of gain coming as well. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to see how anything is being gained from our most terrible of losses. However, it is one of the rules of life that with every loss comes a gain.

It is like painting a picture. At first, we lay down the first wash. We like the colours and are pleased with them. We might be reluctant to paint anything on top of it, but we know that in order to paint the story of our life, we need to begin to move on. We feel reluctant to, because what was there before will now be covered over. But we know we have to go on, for to stay grieving is to stop living and breathing and the one who we have lost would feel immense sadness and heartache to know that their loss meant we stopped painting.

And so the day comes when we begin to paint over that part of ourselves, often in dark colours, for the original light is becoming dim now and darkness is how we feel. Gradually over time, colour returns and although we can no longer see the coats of paint we made originally, we know that they underpin everything we are now painting. Just because we can no longer make that wash of paint out and it remains hidden, it is still there as surely as if we could see it.

That coat becomes the foundation for everything we then choose to paint on it and gradually over time we even begin to enjoy many of the figures and sunsets and night skies we are painting. This once blank canvas has begun to take on a different look and because the wash has laid down it’s life, we want to make our painting of our life story the very best we can to honour that part of ourselves which was lost.

We continue painting and further losses come, but they are never as painful as that awful loss, not because they mean less to us, but because we have learned how to overcome and accept and move on. We have learned that we were brave enough to pick up our paintbrush once more and continue painting. We too have learned that the best way to honour that which was lost is to celebrate all that we’ve since found and gained.

Although for many years we cannot hear this truth for it is too painful, eventually we realise that the amputated branch has left something of great worth which we might never have been able to find without it.

It is then that one realises we could never have become the painting we see in front of us today without both the life and the death of that beautiful, treasured branch of who we were. The open scar on the trunk of who we are will never fade or disappear but we’re glad, for we never want to forget. We have survived that loss and have tried to make our life’s painting as beautiful as we could do within that loss.

For that we need to celebrate our bravery and courage and fortitude and resilience and that we were somehow able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and come out the other side.

One day the story of your life and your losses and gains will be celebrated in heaven as many come to admire the painting you were still able to paint, despite your most terrible of losses. You will be reunited with every stroke from your paint brush and once more be able to see and embrace every wash that was part of it. On that day you will be able to find peace and contentment that you might never have been able to find here.

So, hold onto this truth that no loss comes without some form of gain, although it can often take many, many years before we feel able to accept this most painful of truths.

Looking back on your losses, can you identify any gains that eventually emerged from them? If so, what were they?

What did you find was the hardest thing in your life to move on from and paint over? How did you eventually manage to pick up your paint brush again?