On Loss.

   Pink flowers the size of saucers were blooming brilliantly on magnolia trees all throughout Kansas City the February that my mother died. While I was still trying to process my loss, everywhere I turned, there was a profusion of pink putting on the most stunning display I'd seen in a long time. Every time I caught sight of a saucer magnolia tree, it made me smile. A tree flourishing in late February while I waded through the landscape of loss. When spring finally arrived, I planted one in my front yard in memory of my mom. Every year I watch and wait for my magnolia tree to bloom, and every year my buds have died due to frost before it can put on a proper show. I've yet to see a display like I saw in February of 2016. It's year eight, and I'm realizing it's quite possible I never will.

(This year, buds began to open on the 27th, but a frost that evening killed the open flowers)

     Loss is anything but linear. With each passing year, I become more aware of how longing lingers over time. In addition to the continued reverberations of her death, I'm processing other losses that I've previously tried to bury under analysis, tasks, and to-do lists. I'm now realizing the only way to is through. It brings to mind a quest in a children's book I used to read to my daughters, We're Going on a Bear Hunt. It's been years since I thumbed through the pages, but I can still hear the refrain in my mind:

"We're going on a bear hunt.

We're going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day! 

We're not scared.

Uh-uh! 

A forest!

A big dark forest! 

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it. 

Oh no! 

We've got to go through it! 

Stumble trip! Stumble trip! Stumble trip!"

    It seems I'm stumbling and tripping through my own thicket of trees, trying to make my way to a clearing. Many children's books hold profound truths about life if we look for the threads. 

    I'm learning that loss doesn't only come from death. Loss can also result from using a lens that was a little smudged along the way. Some threads start to unravel because of a book I'm reading that's revealing various distortions: On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good. Recently, I explained to an older, wiser friend that this book was disentangling beliefs that, years ago, unknowingly influenced some of my decisions. She gently reminded me that God's goal is always for wholeness and that nothing is wasted in his economy. I can't help but notice that sometimes the path to wholeness seems covered with overgrown tree roots and thistles. My friend tells me that she read it, too; it also impacted her, and she sighs with knowing. 

    Being a woman isn't easy, and as the author accurately says, "We all struggle to be known, express the truest, most tender parts of ourselves, and feel safe enough to bring our gifts to bear. We wonder: Who am I? What do I want and need? How do I find my purpose and serve?" These questions resonate and feel more urgent during seasons of loss with the acute realization that time is limited and life is short. There are few easy answers, and our lens matters significantly. Naming the book's complexity, my friend cuts to the chase and reminds me to pay attention to Jesus' treatment of women in the New Testament, specifically, how much Jesus truly loved women. After all, Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the risen Jesus. It's not a mistake that the entire gospel of Christianity was trusted to a woman.  

     Leaning into my examination of loss, I listen to an On Being podcast titled Loss, Yearning, Transcendence. In it, Nick Cave explains the impact of the loss of his son: 

    "You know, I don't see the world in the same way I did before; it's much more complex and much more fragile, and this creates a different feeling towards people in general. Grief and empathy are very much connected, in the same way as loss and love are very much connected too, and that the common energy running through life is loss, but you can translate that into love quite easily, they are very, very much connected. That comes from an understanding of just how fragile and vulnerable and precarious the nature of life seems to be."

The host, Krista Tippett, artfully navigates this conversation about loss, accurately concluding towards the end of the episode: 

    "What you learn in the thick of life is the limits of rationality. That this rational way of being that thinks and insists that we can plan everything, and that in fact, we won't again and again be obliterated by things that happen to us, it actually is not reality based."

    I nod my head in agreement while listening. Rationality has its place, but as I'm learning, reality often has other plans. Meanwhile, the magnolia trees begin to bloom, and the snow geese migrate north in perfect synchrony. Hope springs eternal, and nothing is wasted in God's economy.

Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge