Date: 3/7/2024
Tags: Life
Loss is something we all experience in life; the loss of a parent, a friend, a sibling and maybe even a child. As we grow older, we often find ourselves saying “goodbye” to the many who have entered our lives. These are the individuals who touched our lives in a positive way, and we mourn their loss, because their presence in our lives brought so much happiness and love into our lives, and in effect left a “gaping hole” in our hearts.
Every year as I approach my birthday, I reflect back not only on the past year, I think about people and events in my life that have made me the person I am today. As I have said in previous writings, I believe we are all a composite of all of our past experiences. When I go through this reflective exercise there are many individuals, now gone, who come into to my mind, and I think about how they touched my life, no matter what small role they played in my life.
As I play this “memory movie” in my mind, there are many who played a significant role, such as my parents, while there are others who briefly touch my life, but left a lasting memory and a sense of loss. One young man always comes to mind, a student who I met my first year in teaching, when I worked in a high school program for “early school leavers”. His name was Pat, a very troubled young man, who came into our program with a big grudge on his shoulders. His attendance and academic achievement was spotty at best and he lacked any ambition for the future. During that year we spent together, we talked frequently, and while I saw some improvement in his attitude, nothing really changed until he met a young woman who came to love him, and encouraged him by coming to class with him every day. Her encouragement led to his academic success, and as we approached the end of the school year, he qualified for graduation with the knowledge that she would be part of his future. Unfortunately, one week prior to graduation, he was killed in a motorcycle accident, and I found myself mourning for a young man who lost his life, just when his future looked so bright. Pat’s loss taught me to not only look for the good in my students wherever they were in life, but to adopt the same belief in those who I would work with throughout my career as a parent, educator, elected official and friend.
There is a short essay I have kept in my office over the last fifty years, and there is a line that captures my thoughts when I reflect on my past and think about people such as Pat who have touched my life; “You find that you are made up of all the bits and pieces of all who have ever touched your life, and you are more because of it, and you would be less if they had not touched you.” May you appreciate all the “bits and pieces” of all those you have lost who have touched your lives, and who have touched your heart.