Three years ago, I lost my mom.  She lived a long life, but I didn’t have all of her for fourteen years prior to her passing because of Alzheimer’s Disease.  Before that, I lost my sister, my dog, and my dad.  I actually lost my sister many years before she died because she was on drugs and was administered shock treatments in the state mental hospital, which was where they put and how they treated drug users back in the day.  Afterwards, she lost her mind and my sister, the first person that I knew really, truly loved me, became and died as one of the crazy-looking people on the street you try to avoid.  Before that, I lost my aunt and uncle who were like my grandparents.  My real grandfathers died before I was born and my grandmothers passed before I was 12.

When I was in high school, a friend was shot and killed.  Throughout the years, I’ve been through many funerals of neighbors, relatives, associates, and siblings and parents of friends.  My elementary school music teacher passed two weeks ago.  Beyond death and tragedy, people who I thought would always be in my life chose to end our relationship.  I’ve lost jobs, a car, homes that I loved, income, status, my youthful idealism.  At times, I’ve lost myself.

One of my closest friends has had life-threatening health issues for some time.  We have been through so much together, some really crazy, fun times and the painful growth periods that most people go through.  She knows the inside of me, how and why I think.  She’s my sister from another mother.  It’s been very challenging trying to deal with what’s going on with her, especially since we live in different states.  The very selfish thought of potential loss to me is unbearable.  If I allow myself to think of it, I lose my ability to breathe and have to immediately distract myself.

If she is no longer physically in my life, what will I have?  Who will know me like she knows me?  We are supposed to sit on a balcony in our old age, overlooking an ocean, talking about all the stuff we did in our lives, all of the dramas we got through.  With whom will I share the stories that only we know?

But why even think this way? God only knows when her or my time will come.

My elderly neighbors are at the end of their lives.  I am losing my second set of parents, not to mention the best neighbors that I have ever had.  I can’t even imagine not running next door every day and listening to my neighbor daddy’s stories or my neighbor mama’s gossip.  I’ve known them all my life.

Many who meant so much to me are gone.  I don’t have children or a husband.  I don’t have a family that is solely mine.  I’m related to people who have their own families and lives that aren’t really affected by my presence or absence.  So what does that say about me and the lessons that I’m supposed to learn in this life?

Maybe my lesson from having so much loss is to learn how to build internal resources to withstand the loss of the external.  Maybe my lesson is to learn that happiness is not something to get from people or circumstances.  I need to have a sense of beingness.  Being whole and sufficient as I am.  When I become aware of my essence as being joy, being happiness, being abundance, being whatever It is, then that awareness diminishes my reliance on the external.  If I believe that life is eternal, and that I am and they are, then there won’t be sadness for the material that comes and goes. Truly, we will meet again in some form or fashion, as we have been reunited in this world.

Maybe I’m building towards a beingness of non-attachment that will be an asset to me in a different life.  Maybe this now life is elementary school in an infinite sense and I’m being groomed for a more advanced state of being.  Because of what I’m experiencing now, what I’m learning now, what I’m having to go through, I’m at some point going to return to a multi-dimensional experiential life in relationship with beings who have moved beyond my level of perception because they got what they needed, went back in time and space because they missed something, or crossed over because they desired a particular experience or relationship.

Who really knows?  I’m just trying to find some type of meaning for what I’m going through, for what I’m experiencing in this life, and trying to learn and grow from it.  I know that it’s all for my good.  It’s to get me to a certain level of awareness and consciousness.  Isn’t that how we all continue to evolve?