I saw an older movie yesterday, “Winter Solstice” from 2004. It reminded me of the really tough times in my life, when I’ve lost someone or something that means everything to me, and life no longer makes sense. It’s about personal loss, and how we can somehow find meaning in the aftermath. It’s about how hard it is to believe that things can get better in spite of our losses.
I liked the way Roger Ebert put it:
“The movie knows that life is sometimes very discouraging, and keeps on being discouraging, and sometimes you can’t save everybody and have to try to save yourself.”
Anthony LaPaglia plays the father of a family of two teenage boys, whose mother died suddenly in an accident. The family has fallen apart because of disillusionment and rage. Near the end the father says, “It’s a strange thing when everything you built your life on, everything you are, is just gone.”
To me the movie is about how much we don’t control in life, and how we come to terms with all of that uncertainty.
Again on Oprah yesterday, they talked about “The Secret” and how we should all put up a vision board and hope for the best, and life will change. Talk about an illusion. Let’s all live in dream land! The show felt like a good old fashion revival meeting, with guests from the audience standing up and saying how their positive thoughts had changed their lives. I didn’t observe any guests who said, ”My doctor told me I have cancer, but if I just think good thoughts, it will all go away.”
Most of us cannot deal with our lack of control over the largest losses and changes in our lives. One way to cope is to pretend that we control them, so they won’t happen.
But loss and change will happen to all of us, no matter how much we hope otherwise. None of us get out of this alive! So how than to cope?
I highly recommend books by William Bridges, especially “The Way of Transition: embracing life’s most difficult moments.” Dr. Bridges had built his reputation upon his knowledge of transitions up until the time his wife of 33 years received a cancer diagnosis. Then he had to reconsider what he truly knew. That is what this book is about.
His wife, a psychotherapist, dealt with her approaching death in a courageous, forthright way. She kept a journal of her process of letting go which she sent to family and friends. I liked what she said about positive thinking:
“This positive thinking stuff is crap, but then so is negative thinking. They all cover up reality—which is that we don’t know what is going to happen. That’s the reality we have to live with. What a hard truth that is!”
Most of our lives are spent fending off reality, and pretending loss won’t happen to us. Perhaps we should spend more time learning how to cope with it. A part of loving others is accepting that we will probably lose them at some point in time. Pets are the best example, because of their shorter lifespans.
Midlife is a time when we are often forced to confront these realities. Loss becomes apparent, but we also learn that life goes on, we can love again, we can grow through loss into different individuals. If we take the time to fully experience the loss, it helps us become more authentic and alive to what life brings us next. Life is change, that is all.
