"And these losses are necessary because we grow by losing and leaving and letting go." Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst.

 

Growing and becoming wiser is the gain left by the estrangements and losses we suffer in life.  If we are able to tolerate with fortitude what leaves us, we become more human.  When I think about my own life, there were two events that made me grow up and understand that life is synonymous with deep loneliness: the first was the death of my father, and the second was my son’s going to the university for seven long years.  Both relationships, the deepest ones of my life, forced me to face the emptiness of absence. The difference between the two was that although the first was an absence with no return, the second faced me with the difficult task of letting go the one who for many years had been the center of my life. Then came the estrangement of those adult friends who no longer shared my same interests, and finally those friends whom death took away from my life forever.  So, as I said earlier, there is no doubt that life is about letting go what we love; and the gain we reap is learning how to face it. Without forgetting that our own death will be sublime or desperate depending on whether we have respected this law of life.