Calculating Loss

Wrestling with a new revelation this morning -- it's not meant to be maudlin (and it's not a cry for help), so bear with me:

Those who have yet to experience a significant loss may imagine (as I must have once, had I taken the time to think deeply about it) that it's a simple mathematical correction. You started with a number -- say, 100 -- and then you have to subtract 1, so now you have 99. And 99 is so close to 100 that once you've recalibrated and made the necessary adjustments, you can get along just fine with 99 (and maybe add in a "plus-one" later, putting you right back where you started!).

Now imagine the numbers 1-100 on little tiles in variegated colors, arranged in a mosaic over the course of years. What happens next is a seismic event, not a math equation: not only does one tile fall out, but so do all the rest. There is no longer any order to the numbers or the colors -- no tidy sum and no clear motif.

Because there are many kinds of significant losses, the analogy works in many different contexts. It's really just a novel way of understanding the upheaval of loss -- what has really been lost (more than just one element) and why the way forward is like facing life in the aftermath of an earthquake.