21. Losing sucks.

"Haven't you ever lost anything, Dr. Bronx? Your purse? Your car keys? Well, it's rather like that: now you have it, now you don't." ~ Campbell [Medicine Man, 1992]

Some years back, a friend of mine made what would be his ultimate -- and ultimately final -- decision when he walked into a bathroom with a blade and never returned. As is often the case with male suicide, there was no warning. No history of depression; no traumatic event; and no slow, downward spiral to tip us off. Just the seemingly knee-jerk reaction of a man whose life had led him to believe he'd become a burden on his family. It is one of the reasons that men are typically more successful in suicide attempts than their female counterparts. No one can avert a calamity who cannot see it coming. Anyone who has survived such a tragedy knows all too well the psychology behind it.

That doesn't stop you from seeing culpability in your own non-action prior to the event.

It is perhaps lucky for me that I was working at the time. Surrounded by patrons and co-workers, no allowance was made for a full expression of shock and grief upon hearing the news. In the wake of a brief bathroom sob, I reapplied my makeup, hoisted the professional front, and shoved the unpleasant emotions into a deep, dark hole to be reassessed at a more convenient (and preferably solitary) hour.

Days passed before I addressed the issue at all. Then days turned into weeks.

On some level, I knew I was avoiding the unavoidable. It wasn't that I'd no prior dealings with death. Granted, this was the first suicide. But it was also the first time I'd suffered such loss... as an atheist. And to be perfectly honest, I had no idea how to deal with it. In the past, religious tradition had offered easy placations, but in this, the safety net was gone. For the first time, I was forced to face the issue head-on and alone, with no tools, no recourse.

No surprise then, that when it finally hit... it hit hard.

I won't go into details. Suffice it to say that somewhere between the screaming guilt, the rum, and the aimless-frustrations turned shouted-demands of my poor, bewildered husband, I realized that I was likely not alone in my poorly-channeled expressions of grief. While many sectors of the world have fulfilling and healthy customs regarding bereavement, the growth of the typical American child doesn't include a reconciliation with death outside the application of scripture. Our vulnerable senses hijacked by promises of reunion, we are taught to see death as a separation, a temporary and necessary parting in our journey unto paradise. Sadness and agony are postponed indefinitely. Thus, no one teaches the indoctrinated how to mourn -- truly mourn -- for outright loss. We are taught to wait. But never are we taught to cope.

A (somewhat-embittered, I'll admit) part of me can't help but see this glaring oversight in our emotional education as something of a crime. A pink-flowered band-aid schlumped noncommittally over a gaping wound.

What to do when it bleeds?

Paul Ekman, one of the world's leading experts on emotion and emotional expression stated in his (highly recommended) book Emotions Revealed, "I am much less certain that it benefits a person not to feel sadness or agony about the normal losses we all experience in life... Sadness and agony may help heal the loss, and without those feelings the suffering from the loss could endure longer."

I knew that this was no separation. No merry walkabout from which my friend would eventually return. This was the end. This was death. And I too had a choice to make -- one not so final as his, but a choice, nonetheless. I could spend my days wondering at his state in death, pining for a reunion that seemed untenable even by the most supernatural of standards; or I could honor both his life and his passing by treating it as a genuine loss.

Then an amazing thing happened. Life moved on. And I with it.

When my husband's grandmother died the following year, the tools I'd once thought lost were readily available. For my husband as well. We cried, like everyone else. Then found ourselves smiling at her memory, far sooner than everyone else. The same occurred more recently, with the loss of my own aunt, and then my grandmother.

Loss is painful. There is no way around that. And while it seems a comfort to say that those we've lost are waiting for us beyond the veil -- I can't help but feel that sentiment deprives us of an honest emotional experience, and the transition through it. I imagine that many a widow and widower alike have spent a great deal of their lives waiting to reunite with those they once loved, an event that they believe will take place only after they die. How tragic does it seem to live with one hopeful eye toward the grave? I cannot say that the non-religious alternative is easier. I can say, however, as one who has experienced both sides of bereavement, that it feels... healthier, and far more sincere.

Someone once asked me how it is that an atheist can deal with loss. I suppose as a trite reference to the quotation above (because I'm just that kind of gal), I can only say that a person who has lost their keys will waste countless hours, even days, in the hopes of recovering them. A person who knows that they are gone, will cast them anew.