I just wanted to briefly talk about loss.

I think using the word loss is the right word for someone passing. When you lose something at first you can’t believe it, where has it gone? You have a period of longing and regret, then slowly you come to terms with losing whatever it is, but you know that it’s somewhere, maybe in the hands of someone else, maybe at a crossroads, waiting, or maybe peacefully floating down the river, going onto the next stage of its adventure. Nothing is truly lost; it’s just not by your side any longer.

Recently I found out that the Inca people had a different take on time. They don’t see time as a straight, linear thing, a start and a finish; they see the past, present and future all running at the same time. It made me think about loss. If we think like the Incas, whoever we have lost is not truly gone, they are still with us on another timeline. I also believe that if you keep a person in your thoughts, you are keeping their energy alive. They are never truly gone.

Yesterday a friend passed on. He was not a close friend, but a very powerful friend in general. Every time he smiled at you or walked into a room, or caught you for a quick chat at some event or another, he always made time. He always made you feel like a friend. His loss was greater for others than myself. If I feel this way about him and he wasn’t a close friend, imagine how much of an immense friend he was to those who were even closer. Love like that is a special thing, and that will linger on within all of us. He was a true talent both in life and in music.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich

This post is dedicated to Richard Sliwa.