Wednesday's Woe - Collection of Losses

A man's spirit sustains him in sickness,

but a crushed spirit who can bear?

~Proverbs 18:14

Wednesday's Woe

Collection of Losses

~by Tommy and Angie Prince

Some people collect memorabilia. We seem to collect losses now in this season of our life. Add to the loss of our child, other losses that often follow:

• the loss of functioning,
• loss of concentration,
• loss of relationships,
• loss of celebrating,
• loss of family get-togethers,
• loss of normalcy,
• loss of defense mechanisms,
• loss of our former drive or ambition, and
• the loss of who we once were.

The things that once motivated and inspired now seem to have little or no meaning. And now even other loved ones "collected" over the years by the love in our hearts, we now watch as they are snatched away one-by-one by death, adding loss upon loss upon loss to our already crushed hearts.

With our hearts already broken to their deepest decimated level by the death of our child, it feels like we have become a walking target for further damage at a time when our hearts can hardly bare ANY more hurt.

Yet, in such a weakened state, it seems our hearts' defenses are down, and the current hurt and pain serve to effectively dredge up Other Unresolved Hurts, even when we thought (by their years of silence) that they were resolved.

But how can our hearts TAKE any more?

It seems our hearts KNOW they cannot take any more, and so our systems go into a state of HYPER-VIGILANCE, ever watching for ANY sign of ANY potential danger to any one of our loved ones so that we can attempt to "Stop the Madness," stop the ravaging of our already broken hearts. But once again, we are powerless, we are helpless to protect, to intervene, to STOP LOSS for we live in a fallen world that includes death, dying, evil, sin-run-amuck, and harm befalling us and our loved ones.

The loss of our baby girl is taking priority. But these other losses are on the back seat pushing to get into the front seat and are requiring immediate attention! And so these additional losses are stirring up trouble in our already-broken-systems for as they pile on more losses for us to deal with, in effect, they are reintroducing Trauma! Our systems are now hitting TILT.

But as one good friend of mine, a fellow grieving mother, Danielle Helms, said to me tonight in her tongue-in-cheek way,

"Well at least our Traumas are distracting us from our Losses!"