Lost and Lonely

She’d always wondered about the term ‘losing’ when somebody died.  It seemed an odd phrase to use, like you’d lost a set of keys, a pencil, a dog.  It didn’t truly convey the feeling of grief, intense sorrow and utter despair.  To ‘lose’ someone almost implies you will find them again …. they were just misplaced and would in fact return.

They had “lost” someone this week.  To an illness diagnosed only a few short months before.  She had not known him long, or indeed very well, but he featured strongly in her memories from “The Wedding” and the holiday in France she had recently enjoyed.  Mr She had grown up with him – friends from school, friends during those teenage and early adulthood years when mischief was always in the making and they were ten foot tall and bulletproof.   She was feeling the loss more deeply in empathy with his partner, now left behind to carry on without her soul mate, the man of her dreams, perhaps the love of her life, their plans and dreams shattered and dissolved.  She had cried long and hard knowing only too well what that feeling of loss and abandonment would be like – putting herself in the shoes of another, dredging up the feelings of her dad’s passing and imagining herself in the situation, broken and lonely and devastated.

Today was the remembrance day for a man she wished she had known better.  For a man that was funny and kind and larger than life. A superhero to his daughters.  For a man that had found a new life on this side of the word and a forever love.  A chance to say goodbye and to share memories of the man who had lived life to the full and often on the edge.  The shortcut through the sunflower fields on a night where he should not have been driving – a memory she would now forever hold, always he would be associated with sunflowers, with France.

He had always been the life and soul of the party, squeezing every ounce of fun out of every opportunity.  “Mr Indestructible” had dodged many a bullet over the years but this was one he was unable to outrun, no matter his determination.

Life is precious and short – she was reminded of this and the need to live everyday to the fullest.    The feeling of loss is indelibly raw at such a time and the grief which stays is testament to the love shared.

So they had “lost” someone this week.  And now she fully understood what it meant.

RIP Glen – Taken too soon and too young.