The Bone People

A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.

Although there have been rare occasions when my family was the bane of my existence, all kidding aside, I do know whether my family is bane or meaning. They are beyond a doubt the latter. Earlier this year, I was faced with the unbearable loss of three close family members, one right after the other. By the time the third funeral rolled around, I no longer knew whether I was coming or going. As we prepared my aunt's memory board, my cousin and I got to talking. She mentioned that it was guilt that was keeping her brother, who lives 1,000 miles away, from attending his mother's funeral.

In unusual form, I responded, "Sometimes I wish I'd taken off after high school, never to return. It would make losing people so much easier."

Caught a litte off guard, she implored, "No, don't ever say that."

I quickly covered myself with: "I'd never trade what I had but ...."

In that moment, I meant what I said. Faced with profound grief, it would have been easier to lose these people I loved so much if I hadn't allowed them so deeply and inextricably into my heart, but I meant it only for a moment.

I've learned the hard way that love and pain cannot exist separately. You cannot fully experience one without, at some point, facing the other. To steal an overused expression, "It's better to have lost at love than never to have loved at all."

Yep, a lot of people I've loved have 'surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart,' but had I never loved them, I'd have no heart at all.