How to deal with loss

I took my dog, Bella for a walk in the neighborhood and couldn’t help but enjoy the crisp morning air and puffs of clouds dotting the baby blue sky above me. Other walkers were passing me by and smiling as they looked at Bella tugging her leash and exuding a feeling of happy playfulness. It just felt like one of those moments when all seemed to be right in the world.

As I was walking up the hill, I spotted a squirrel on the side of the road, obviously hit by a car. This is a pretty common sight in my neighborhood. The squirrels hesitate in the middle of the road not being able to decide whether to cross or not, making them vulnerable to cars passing by.

As I walked past the squirrel, I noticed its eyes were still open and its tail was moving. I was overtaken with a feeling of dread and helplessness. I wanted to help the squirrel not suffer, but I didn't know what to do. If I moved it, it might cause the squirrel to be in more pain than it already was. How could I just walk away and do nothing to help?

After scanning through solutions in my mind, I realized there wasn't much that I could do but bear my feelings of helplessness and continue to walk.

The beautiful morning had transformed into a painful situation in a matter of minutes. As the tears ran down my cheeks, I kept hoping this poor squirrel would soon be out of its misery. I started getting lost in my thoughts and contemplating how unfair and cruel life can be at times. Returning to the present moment, I gazed up and noticed that the environment did not mirror my internal experience of turmoil. Walkers were still smiling, the sky was still shining and the day's appearance hadn’t changed one bit. This thought left me feeling very alone and disconnected from everyone else. I wanted to stop a walker and ask them if they had witnessed this tiny helpless squirrel suffering on the side of the road. But I didn't, I just continued to walk.

After reaching the top of the hill, I turned to walk back down. As I walked, Bella was still playfully tugging at her leash. We approached the squirrel once again. It still had its eyes open, but this time I noticed that the fur on the tail was moving from the wind of the cars passing by, not by the squirrel. It probably had been dead all along. I had jumped so rapidly into my fear and helplessness that I didn't even realize the possibility of this squirrel already being dead.

Feeling calmer, I started to recall a wise passage I had read in a book by James Hollis, "The great rhythm of gain and loss is outside of our control; what remains within our control is the attitude of willingness to find in even the bitterest losses what remains to be lived." It is a struggle when, through loss, we learn just how little control we have in their lives. We are humbled by the randomness of our fate and the fate of our loved ones. For some it is an unbearable concept which can force them to self-medicate, distract, or even deny their pain.

If we can't avoid the pain of life, how can we work towards learning to tolerate it? Mindful meditation can be a wonderful tool in helping us to deal with our thoughts and emotions. The practice of mindful meditation is not a process of getting rid of something, but of opening up to it and receiving a deeper understanding. Through understanding and compassion we make room for freedom, peace and joy to enter our lives. By focusing on our in breath and our out breath we bring a concentration to the present moment. The practice of focusing keeps us in the present moment and out of the past and the future. Thich Nhat Hanh says it beautifully, "In the spirit of meditation , life is only really present in the here and now. The past is already gone and the future has not arrived yet. When we can be in touch with what is wonderful in the present moment, we are nourished and healed."

Did you ever notice how you could experience something unpleasant only once, but the thoughts don't end there, they can continue to reverberate in the mind long after the experience is over? The continual thoughts produced by our minds cause added suffering to the painful experience. If we dwell peacefully in the present moment, we can experience a wonderful healing that can take us out of the clutches of regret about the past and anxiety about the future. Staying in the present moment creates space to observe what we are thinking, and the choice to decide whether or not we want to act on it. By learning to focus your attention on the breath, you can cultivate awareness and clarity of what is entering your mind. Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful road for stopping the busyness of our minds and getting ourselves back in touch with our inner wisdom .

Staying present with the reality of life's impermanence heightened my awareness of the fullness of life around me. It presented two choices for me, I could dwell in the place of loss and let that squirrel stir the pot of all the painful losses from my past, or I could dwell in the place of appreciation for what remains alive around me. The ability to be present with all of my painful feelings over my furry friend helped me to walk away with a deeper, richer experience and a greater understanding of life and loss.