What We Lose

by Zinzi Clemmons

Early on I felt I had nothing to offer Dean except my body. He was a full person and I knew that I wasn’t yet, that I was still growing, that he and our relationship were shunting me into being. I made myself available to him all the time, and it wasn’t long before he’d used me all up, grown bored, decided he needed more.

Loss is a straightforward equation: 2 − 1 = 1. A person is there, then she is not. But a loss is beyond numbers, as well as sadness, and depression, and guilt, and ecstasy, and hope, and nostalgia—all those emotions that experts tell us come along with death. Minus one person equals all of these, in unpredictable combinations. It is a sunny day that feels completely gray, and laughter in the midst of sadness. It is utter confusion. It makes no sense.

When I look at this picture of her at the beach, I can feel the sun on my skin. I can hear the way she spoke to me. But she is gone.

Chronic pain is one of the most difficult states for humans not suffering from it to imagine.

Few of us will experience the level of pain that does not respond to powerful painkillers. That is a hell reserved for the very unlucky.

Pain can be a disease in itself.