Finding a new meaning: “I’m sorry for your loss”

Losing something you love can be excruciating, but losing someone you love can be downright unbearable.  I was fortunate enough to never experience that kind of pain as a child.  To never feel the bottoming out of your stomach that comes when you lose someone unexpectedly.

Losing my great grandparents all in their late 90s seemed like an expected passage and their long lives were celebrated rather than mourned.  I was well into my 20s before I lost a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or friend, and I fortunately still haven’t experienced the loss of a parent, sibling, child or spouse.  I remember seeing the heart-wrenching pain on people’s faces when I attended funerals when I was younger for friends who lost their parents or siblings.  I did my best to understand and sympathize, but that kind of agony is incomprehensible if you haven’t lived through it.