But loss, losing, getting lost, loss of stuff, loss of love, loss of a loved one, well, I don't see any words that convey the virtue that I will simply call, 'losing'. And, gosh, it sure should be on the list today of all days, of all times, decades, historic gyrational periods. Period. My goodness, right now, at this moment in time, being able to 'lose' certainly should score some points. Big ones. Oscar winning loser! That's what I'm talking about.
I mean think about Annette Bening losing Oscars not once but twice to Hilary Swank. (Not remembering? Think about the movies American Beauty, Boys Don't Cry, Being Julia, Million Dollar Baby.) How is that even possible? Would odds makers ever have predicted such a thing? You try and coach Annette. Right now. In your head. You're Annette's good friend. You are sitting with her at the Oscars. Knowing how good at losing you are, how would you counsel Ms. Bening? What 'teaching moment' could you motivate to take this from an emotional earthquake to one of virtue?
I've been giving the whole idea of 'losing' a lot of thought. It's occurred to me that maybe the learning experience, the teaching moment, is not about winning at all. Are we passing on the wrong or less than valuable lessons to our children? Like how to lose. I am not talking about being a gracious loser. Or how to be inauthentic. To kowtow (look that one up, will you).
I'm talking about how to accept 'losing' as a quality in your life.
Perhaps, all of us who have the chance to teach, parent, encourage, motivate or coach should focus on 'losing'. When was the last time you heard someone with a microphone stuck in their face saying, "I owe this to my father who taught me the value of losing."
Don't we often hear that we learn more from our mistakes than from our victories? That the only stupid question is the one you don't ask? Winston Churchill, who probably didn't know he was the master of all things quotations for all times said, "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
He also said, "If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised."
So, in my thinking about 'losing', as a parent it occurs to me that maybe I should have spent some time building up the virtue of 'losing' in my children. That if I were asked to recommend a parenting skill, it would be to make 'losing' into a family event, to share your losses, to even encourage a loss now and then. Would it be awful for a baseball pitcher to give up a hit to someone who so needed one? And Serena, you obviously need to lose a lot more tennis games so you can find the pleasure zone of 'losing'. The Cubs sure have used the art of 'losing' to their advantage. Would we care so deeply about them if it weren't for their losing streaks? The San Diego Chargers are just as loss worthy but are movies and theatrical productions made about them? Can you imagine being Barry Bonds and so cutoff from the joy of the great loss that you would do anything to just plain win?
The home of a friend of mine's was burglarized last week. It's awful. To lose memories. Stories misplaced that come to you when holding a piece of jewelry from your mother. Lost feelings only recovered when you touch the earrings your love gave you decades earlier. A brooch made of slivers of emerald; who would so broach your life to take away this remembrance of your grandmother? The devastation of this is not the things, the stuff as George Carlin might point out, it is the pain, the gut clenching pain of loss. It is the actual deep down wretchedness of life that rips through one's being due to loss. It is all of Kubler-Ross's stages of grief and the knowing that such sadness has no stage, no theater in which a happy ending is due.
I don't want to speculate that my friend will get through this or past the pain of the loss of her things. Or that she will be better, stronger or more capable because of it. I just want her to know that her friends know she's in pain. It may quell but it won't subside completely. Just like another friend, the image of losing her grandmother's crystal during an earthquake has never gone far away. It is one of her guides. A task master of loss that keeps her grandmother still by her side.
My nephew lost at a sports game a few weeks back. The loss meant he wouldn't evolve to a match with a formidable foe who he had spent many days anticipating with almost glee. I wasn't there but I can imagine my nephew's pain; the unfairness of it all; the inequity of sport. But I also know my nephew when he gives in - to his sister, to bedtime, to his aunt in a mall when she says no more to continued shopping. I've seen my nephew let go of stuff. I've seen him accept that we've bought all we'll be buying. I've heard him say, "But aren't you getting anything?"
There's something very deep to the virtue of losing. For me, I can conjure up far more depth of feeling when I think of my brother at my mom's funeral, when I recall our family coming together to embrace my dad, when I see my youngest sitting at her grandfather's feet for hours as if she were his guard llama, there to allow him his loss without requiring anything from him.
Most all of us have lost so very much in the last couple of years. I think it is a sense of security that began with 9-11 and then moved to encroach upon all aspects of our lives be it jobs, money, cancers, deaths of parents, health insurance and for one good friend, having to give up his Harley. What represents a devastation of emotion to one person may be a small piece of jewelry on which you always meant to get the clasp fixed. It might be selling your motorcycle. Learning not to assume you'll so easily make it to the next rung in the match. Accepting that our children will learn the virtue of loss most likely without the compassion of our embrace.
The pain of losing is perhaps more valuable than any win possible. It may be our best virtue.
Maybe Tennyson meant to say, 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to to have 'lost' at all.'
Marcia's 'listen to' twofer for today: Gone by Jack Johnson and Lord, I'm Discouraged by The Hold Steady
No comments:
Post a Comment