loss

Reachable, near and not lost, there remained in the midst of the losses this one thing: language. It, the language, remained, not lost, yes, in spite of everything. But it had to pass through its own answerlessness, pass through frightful muting, pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech. It passed through and gave back no words for that which happened; yet it passed through this happening. Passed through and could come to light again, __nriched_ by all this.

I guess this was what it felt like to love someone and feel like you had lost them. Even when you were still holding them in your arms.

I thought of all the hardships and people that I had lost in the past few days alone, but, most of all, I thought of how I didn't regret any of it.

Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger. But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who said that? She couldn__ remember now. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was called aging. They reached toward if as if they were satellites in unstable orbits. And then when they got there, they were just dead. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts.

You just know something is amiss, when you look at someone and long for something that is not yours or you cannot have. It's an absence--a loss of a heartbeat.

I was so much in the habit of having Albertine with me, and now I suddenly saw a new aspect of Habit. Hitherto I had regarded it chiefly as an annihilating force which suppresses the originality and even the awareness of one's perceptions; now I saw it as a dread deity, so riveted to one's being, its insignificant face so incrusted in one's heart, that if it detaches itself, if it turns away from one, this deity that one had barely distinguished inflicts on one sufferings more terrible than any other and is then as cruel as death itself.

There is a widespread sense of loss here, if not always of God, then at least of meaning.

Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That__ what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads _ at least that__ where I imagine it _ there__ a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you__l live for ever in your own private library.

There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.

By seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise to the ways of the world, such a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own name, dares not believe in himself, finds being himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, along with the crowd. Now this form of despair goes practically unnoticed in the world. Precisely by losing oneself in this way, such a person gains all that is required for a flawless performance in everyday life, yes, for making a great success out of life. Here there is no dragging of the feet, no difficulty with his self and its infinitizing, he is ground smooth as a pebble, as exchangeable as a coin of the realm. Far from anyone thinking him to be in despair, he is just what a human being ought to be. Naturally, the world has generally no understanding of what is truly horrifying.

I wanted to ask my father about his regrets. I wanted to ask him what was the worst thing he'd ever done. His greatest sin. I wanted to ask him if there was any reason why the Catholic Church would consider him for sainthood. I wanted to open up his dictionary and find the definitions for faith, hope, goodness, sadness, tomato, son, mother, husband, virginity, Jesus, wood, sacrifice, pain, foot, wife, thumb, hand, bread, and sex. "Do you believe in God?" I asked my father."God has lots of potential," he said."When you pray," I asked him. "What do you pray about?""That's none of your business," he said. We laughed. We waited for hours for somebody to help us. What is an Indian? I lifted my father and carried him across every border.

One always has to be willing to lose to be able to win... in battle and in life. I wonder. Are you willing to lose, Rayla?

Eternity is a long time and it doesn't always work out that way," Jareth says, a bit bitterly. "It's worse to love someone and then lose them, then to never love at all.

And then Jonah heard God__ voice. __onah, do you know what the difference is between you and the trees?_ He was confident it was God because God usually asked questions but gave no answers. Jonah didn__ need a divine answer to this question, he knew it. __es,_ he said. __he difference between me and the trees is that the trees let go of their leaves. I keep holding onto mine. The trees make room for new life. I don__.

If she lives, she shall be my wedded wife. If she dies--mother, I can't speak of what I shall feel if she dies." His voice was choked in his throat.

I am ashes where once I was fire...

We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We__e willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.

I hadn__ understood at the time. If sinners were so unhappy,why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why.Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my pastwas my life.