The Overwhelming Loss of Self

I suppose it had never occurred to me before. I mean, people died when I was younger but I guess I never really put two and two together. Maybe nobody does. I suppose it actually had much more to do with the type of relationship I had with those who died. I'm not talking about the quality of the relationship; no, this has more to do with socio-geography than it does with long walks on the beach. The first people that I remember dying were not people that I spent a lot of time with, either physically or in my head. In fact, I probably would have learned this earlier had I spent more time with some or all of them. I heard something on the radio today that I liked quite a bit: when you lose a parent, you lose the past; when you lose a child, you lose the future; when you lose a spouse, you lose the present. Losing the past is something terrible, but as children or young adults, we are pretty used to losing the past; we welcome it in most cases. Even so, we still lose that part of ourselves that existed only in the intersection of our lives with the other person's. Losing a child or a spouse (or sibling or friend) is even more terrible in the sense that you lose not only the part of you that existed in conjunction with that person, but also all the moments that were to come. Horrifically, it is the death of potential. Even though your potential may be realised eventually, the dance with that person is over. Insofar as that part of you is defined by its relation to the dance, you die too. To all those who have died but are still alive, I'm sorry for not understanding sooner.