I'm Sorry for Your Loss

It occurred to me the other day that I should walk up to every person I see and say: “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry that you weren’t better taken care of.” And I think that 98% of people would think: “how did you know?”

Over these past few years, I’ve been dealing with loss on a pretty big scale. Among many other things, this process has reminded (or *alerted*) me that loss and hurt are regular, essential, and enduring parts of our lives.

I spend a lot of time these days thinking, talking and writing about my beloved son Alex, and feeling his absence. I’ve also spent a lot of time revisiting and acknowledging the enduring effects of other losses in my life – my parents (my father passed in 2010; my mother passed in 2020), my brother-in-law John (way too soon, in October of 2022), my brother John (in April of 2024) and a million less dramatic wounds and losses over my longish life. The loss of Alex has echoed in places I never would have imagined.

And I’m also reminded (for the 10,000th time) that, all of this said, my story is not extraordinary. In fact, I’m an incredibly lucky human being. My longish list of wounds and losses notwithstanding, my life has been characterized by safety and an *incredible* network of support and love. I’m one of the lucky ones.

There is, of course, a lot of pressure to pretend that loss and hurt and trauma and emotional harm (intentional and unintentional) are not regular and enduring aspects of all of our lives. Wounds heal and, before you know it, you’re “just about as good as new.” A scar, maybe, but “time heals all wounds.” That voice is in my head, for sure. Buck up. Don’t wallow. Don’t be dramatic. Move forward. Other people have it worse than you. Play hurt. Put it behind you. Get your lunch pail and get back to work. No one said life is easy. Don’t burden other people with your problems.

Sitting on all of this – holding it in – is, of course, toxic. But many of us are walking around carrying a lot of unacknowledged pain.

And so it occurs to me that I should walk up to every person I see and say: “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry that you weren’t better taken care of.”

I am not entirely sure how I’m going to move forward. But I know this: I am going to try to treat people – friends, family and people who regularly annoy me – with a little more patience and empathy. It’s very likely that they’re hurting.

And I’m going to be nicer to myself.

And I’m sorry for your loss(es).