The Ways of Loss

I've been thinking about strange things lately... Things like loss. I suppose it's the strange combination of lost houses, lost babies, and lost freedoms permeating the lives of those I know. It seems like something that is hitting as many people as possible.

One of my cousins miscarried the week before last, and in my own personal writing I've taken on the scenario of "what if one of my characters lost their baby". In some ways it is...masochistic of me. My family is notorious for being either very fertile or having great troubles getting pregnant, and I'm honestly more likely to have inherited the latter. I have the vague concern that having a family will be difficult for me, but I'm oddly comforted by knowing that there are strong women in my life who've gone through it and survived. One of my clearest memories is my mother and grandmother talking about what it was like.... I can't even fathom what my cousin must be going through: she doesn't have a testimony of life after death. I am very grateful for the fact that I have a testimony of the Gospel, and that I know families are meant to be united for time and all eternity. There are many members of my family that I won't get to meet in this life, but I feel they're just another thing to look forward to in the life to come.

This year I've also watched different family members lose their houses. Admittedly, that's one a little to close to home. I've been told over and over again that it isn't the physical place that makes a home but the people inside of it, but... I still worry. I suppose I've paid too much attention to the pyramid of needs, which seems pretty insistent that you need shelter to be a happy-pappy member of society. Luckily, everyone I know who has gone through this particular form of loss has had somewhere to go.

And this week a former friend was recently sentenced in an attempted murder case. It still hasn't quite processed that he went so thoroughly... I don't even know how to describe it. Two years ago he tried to bash two guys' brains out with a hammer, and all I can think about is 'what if he had gone after me?' This friend visited my house a month before the attack, and everything seemed... All right? I had expected that I would have been able to see some change in him or sense the darkness that might drive an individual to those sorts of measures, but there was nothing. I don't understand how someone who had served a mission just the year before could do that. I really don't. I know it's not God's fault--we all make our own decisions and Zach made some truly awful ones. I just feel inept for having been blind to what was going on. Is this supposed to be some sort of warning? Some lesson that I'm missing?

Loss in all its forms is...making an impact on me. I can feel it brush past me, like someone walking too close to me in a tight hallway. Next time is it going to crash into me?