TONI MORRISON - Something that is loved is never lost

 

No person is ever spared from experiencing loss. We are not unfamiliar with goodbyes and departures. And we know that life is full of changes and transitions. But despite the reality that parting is part of the human journey, it never becomes easy. Our hearts can never get used to the pain of an absence. Every separation from someone or something that we loved is always an entirely new encounter with vulnerability, sorrow and grief.

The Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison offers a thought that can console us when we are forced by circumstances to bid goodbye to those that we hold dear:

“Something that is loved is never lost.”

In any moment of loss, it is up to those who remain to relish, remember and keep alive the presence of what has gone. And there is no limit to how we can continue valuing that person or thing that is no longer with us. We can carry on the fight of heroes who are not here anymore, standing up for the freedom, truth and justice they sacrificed for. We can allow our encounter with that which we miss to still shape us, recalling what they have taught us or shared with us. And we can choose to live our own lives never forgetting that our existence has been marked and influenced by someone or something that touched our hearts. Truly, one’s impact and meaning can never be reduced or lost because we cannot see them or be with them anymore. For love goes beyond that kind of involvement and commitment.

We know for sure that nothing lasts in this world. But love is such that it is perhaps the only one that can never be contained nor overcome by the bounds of temporariness. God’s love has, indeed, accompanied us all throughout history, triumphing time and again and even until the end over human frailties. Our love for one another has enabled the continuation of meaningful traditions, deep bonds of family and friendship and the survival of our best human values despite trials. And so it is with any of our connections that have been forged in love: loss is but a far-away idea because we never deprive those we hold dear to live within us.