Tammy McClelland

Below is a homework assignment from my counselor.  The following thoughts about my identity and loss were written on 9/12/11.

Identity and Loss

I knew from the moment that I was given this as homework, I was not going to like it.  I tried to shut it from my thoughts but it creeped in any way.  I put it off because I did not want to face it.  There is a lot of hesitancy in me to “go there” right now.

Yet all weekend, God seemed to keep bringing things to me that spoke of this.  The phrase from A Grace Disguised came first:

“…I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter until it becomes part of who I am.”  I feel an immediate pain and ache in my chest with that statement.

Then God seems to call me to something deeper with the next phrase:

“…the deeper we plunge into suffering, the deeper we can enter into a new and different life…a willing to face the loss and enter into the darkness…”  It seems that this crossroad is where I stand.  I have a choice and I have known it for a while:  either walk into the darkness and embrace all that it encompasses or to run from the darkness and ignore all that it represents.

I think that the darkness represents part of the identity for me, an acceptance on some level.  Maybe it is more about letting the loss become a “part” of me instead of something that happened “to” me.  That involves a deeper level of grief and sorrow, maybe even joy, then where I am now.

Yet if Travis truly was a part of me and my identity, it makes sense that the loss of him would have to be a part of me as well.

I think the only way that happens is for me to enter the darkness.  What if I get stuck in that darkness?  What if I sink into that darkness and can not get out?  What if the pain of that darkness overwhelms me?  What if I do not find God in the darkness?

Yet it seems that the means God is providing for me to experience Him now is darkness.

The following seems to be the best picture I have found about loss and identity for what I feel right now:

“…Lovers still reach out in the night to embrace one who is no longer there.  Its like the phantom pain experienced by those who have lost a limb.  Feelings still emanate from that region where once was a crucial part of them, and they will sometimes find themselves being careful not to bang the corner of a table or slam the car door on a leg or arm long since removed.  Our hearts know a similar reality.  At some deep level, we refuse to accept the fact that this is the way things are, or must be, or always will be.  Simone Weil was right, there are only two things that pierce the human heart:  beauty and affliction.  Moments we wish would last forever and moments we wish had never begun.”  That is where my heart lives right now, in between beauty and affliction.  All those moments with Travis that I wish would have lasted forever and that moment when I took him to the ER where I wish it had never begun.

When I think about the picture of image of someone who has lost a limb, the first thing that you notice about that person is their evident loss.  You can not help it, it is just obvious.  Even if they have an artificial limb, it is not the same.  They have just learned how to live with the loss.

That picture is one that I feel like is me without Travis.  My loss will always be evident and obvious.  I will always have phantom pain.  I may learn to live with it but it will be part of me.  Not in a physical representation but in an emotional representation.