Over the course of our lives, we routinely suffer a variety of losses. Most are small, like a young child’s tooth. Others are more significant but, in the grand scheme of things, really no big deal. Then, of course, there are the losses that loom large, such as the loss of a loved one. All loss is an inescapable part of life.
As to those smaller things, most adults have lost watches, rings, car keys, pens, and what not. I say these things are small because, like baby teeth, we easily can count on a suitable replacement. If a lost thing can be replaced, so what? You just go out and get another one.
This is especially true in our “throwaway” world. If, for example, your DVD player stops working, that is a loss. But you don’t have it repaired. You throw it away and buy another one. Why, we hardly even get shoes or watches repaired anymore. If they are damaged, we throw them away without a second thought. Still, it is a loss. We do, however, lose things that are of far greater value.
I know a couple of modest means who lost twenty-thousand dollars on an off-shore investment scheme. The scheme? In one year, the money would multiply tenfold. In five years, the “earnings” on the investment would be in the millions. It took them nearly 20 years save the upfront cash they thought would soon make them wealthy. In little more than the time it takes to write a check, they lost it all. The couple — wiser and poorer — took it in stride, though.
That reminds me. Some years ago my mother bought into a Christian village timeshare. When she told me of her plan to do this, I could not hide my feelings. She told me that, for ten thousand dollars, they would let her have the two best weeks of the year. I told her flat out that it sounded like a lousy deal, and possibly a scam. My reaction was all the encouragement she needed to send the village organizers her hard earned money.
It gave me no I-told-you-so glee when the thing turned out to be just what I thought it was — a scam. I think it was not so much the loss of the money that hurt my mom. It was knowing that she had been fooled by people claiming to be good Christians. If there is any lesson in it, I guess it is that the people most likely to rip you off are those, by blood or faith, who are closest to you. Anyway, I don’t think mom — a money conscious child of the Depression Era — has ever gotten over the loss.
I think one of the greatest losses is that of a loved one. This is especially true if a child is lost to illness or accidental death. Book stores and libraries have shelve upon shelve of books on how to cope with such losses. I lost my oldest sister, Maria, a few years ago. No one in my family, especially mom, has even come close to getting over it. We cope by remembering her and celebrating her time with us.
There is another loss that is almost worse than a death: loss of memory. After all, personal identity is little more than a function of memory. Accordingly, if someone develops Alzheimer’s (as my father-in-law did) it is like losing the person before they die. What a terrible disease!
On a larger scale, as it is with individuals, so it is with entire nations. In this regard, we are suffering from a kind of historical and cultural Alzheimer’s. Many American adults and children, for example, have only the fuzziest recollection of key events that shaped this nation. Again, as with individuals, if we don’t know where we’ve been, it is impossible to know where we are headed.
As I think about it, perhaps the worst loss of all is the loss of time. For one thing, it can never be recovered. For another, we are all destined to lose it anyway. We start losing stuff before we are born. If we live long enough, we lose hair, teeth, memory, and strength till, at the last, we are in diapers again. At life’s end, when we have run out of time, we have lost everything.
Have a nice day!
Primus Mootry is an Anderson resident and a high school teacher.
