How Can We Heal from an Irrevocable Loss?
The tree was gone.
It had stood guard over my favorite stone bench in the arboretum, creating the perfect sanctuary in a tucked-away, little-used corner of the sprawling gardens. This spot, “my” spot, felt safe and calm and just a little bit magical. I went there as often as I could, to hear birds, to hear my thoughts, to meditate, to just breathe.
But now.
The bench was there, exposed in the sunlight without its leafy umbrella overhead. A place I held as a refuge, a place I had specifically sought out today when my head and heart needed healing, was permanently changed. Damaged. Broken. Ruined. The oak was yet one more victim of the destructive winds and fires that had torn through Los Angeles only weeks before. Its fresh-sawn stump was there, almost too terrible to behold. The tree was gone.
Bereft, I continued walking along the path, wondering where and I how I could heal from this fresh loss. And then I saw the tree.
To be precise, I saw a 6 foot mountain of mulch.
The majestic oak, toppled by hurricane force winds, was never again going to shade me as I meditated on the bench. But it was still at the arboretum. And it still had work to do.
Would it provide weed protection for vulnerable saplings? Would it become nutrition for the showy roses, forming a backdrop to summer weddings? Would it become part of the trail that winds through the Children’s Garden? Truly, the possibilities were endless. No longer a shade tree, but still with so much worth.
How can we persevere through irrevocable loss? This is a question that so often lands clients in my therapy office. There are times when it seems that life is over. Not literally, of course, but pretty darn close. Times when it seems that everything we knew about ourselves and our lives, the habits and people and things we took for certain, are completely uprooted and gone.
How can I be a mother when I have to ask my grown kids for help?
How can I be a writer when dementia is making it hard to compose my grocery list?
How can I be a husband when my wife has died?
How can I be an adventurer when I can no longer walk more than a block?
People seek answers when they, like the oak tree, feel destroyed. Broken. Ruined. They feel a chasm between who they have always been, and who they are now. What can be done when the problem really can’t be “fixed”? When the tree has completely blown down?
We begin by grieving the loss. This often comes as an unwelcome surprise to new clients who tell me that they have come to therapy to “get over it”, “move on with life”, or “quit feeling sorry for myself.” Don’t get me wrong, I definitely want folks to live fuller, happier lives! But in order to get there, we do have to first acknowledge the magnitude of the loss.
Talking about loss is painful, so our brains naturally try to shield us from it through minimizing and denial. However, when we take an honest, healthy look at loss, we find that the fear and sadness is manageable. It can coexist with who we are now, and even who we will become.
When confronted with the tree stump, I placed my hands upon it. I sifted the sawdust through my fingers. I sat upon the bench, strangely warm in the sun now that the shade was gone. I wiped at my tears. The tree was no more, and I wanted to really notice and honor all that it had been.
What next? After bravely facing an irrevocable loss, what can be done to bring order and meaning and sense back to life?
You figure out what to do with the mulch. It can’t be pieced back together. It simply will not ever become exactly the same oak tree it was before. And yet, there are endless possibilities. So, too, with our human lives. We can find new roles, or new ways of fulfilling old ones. We can adapt, change, and grow in surprising new ways. We may even find that we really like the new versions of who we have become.
In therapy, we look for the things that were not lost, the parts of us that persevere. This is adaptivity and resilience, both critical skills in mental health. We think about ourselves, our values, our actions, and how we want to BE in the world. A mother may need to ask for help, but she still offers the same unconditional love to her kids. A writer finds that his creativity is intact, and finds a different format for expression. A bereaved husband honors special anniversaries, even while forming new relationships. An adventurer books a cruise that offers wheelchair excursions.
We will always carry the memory of what was lost, and even the pain of it. But the story doesn’t end with the loss. There is another story yet to be written, if you know how to find it.