What Is Lost? What Is Left? What Is Possible?

After a major loss, we work on coming up with answers to the questions, what is lost, what is left, and what is possible. We discover that more than just the person himself or herself has been lost, but we also come to discover things that remain and possibilities that open up as we continue on in our lives.

Of the many questions that come up after someone you love has died, there are three that may not have even come to mind yet. But even if you haven’t thought of these words, the work of grief is a process, over time, of discovering answers to these questions:

• What is lost?
• What is left?
• What is possible?

What Is Lost?

Just like after a hurricane slams through a town, it takes time after a death to look through your life and discover what has been lost.

Of course, what is lost is the person who died. But it doesn’t take long to realize that this main loss is just the biggest of a whole train of further losses.

The other losses are the many ways in which the loved one’s absence has created so many other holes in your life, has wrecked so many other plans, has broken so many routines.

"When I lost my Mom, I didn’t just lose a mother, I lost my best friend. I lost my home. I lost school, I lost friends, I lost animals. Important pieces of my life suddenly weren’t there anymore." — Ariel, 17

Everywhere you turn you stumble across another place where they are not and will never be again. There’s that familiar voice. That unique smell. The special food you enjoyed together. The empty chair at the table. There are holidays, birthdays, family get-togethers of all kinds — all different now.

You might even think that parts of yourself are lost, gone, or changed now. There are hopes and dreams and goals and plans, wrecked like a town after a hurricane has blown through.

What Is Left?

But not everything really will be gone. It might take some time to realize this, and to discover what is left, but over time we find more and more that has remained, that is still with us.

Memories remain. At first, we might not see that as a gift, since we’d trade all the memories we have just to have the actual person right there in front of us again. But the memories can be cherished as a continuing connection to the one who is gone.

More can be discovered. There are relationships that remain. We might have keepsakes, special items handed down from our loved one. There are traditions we might still keep, or that we can change. Maybe there are values and beliefs, and even dreams, rearranged over time to fit our new reality.

No one can say for you what is left for you. It’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself. But as you continue your journey of grief, you’ll continue to make these discoveries, and find connections with the past — and with the person who died.

What Is Possible?

At first, even continuing with life itself may not seem possible. But possibilities do begin to open up as we continue on the journey.

Again, since these are your own possibilities, no one can tell you what they are for you. No one can discover them for you.

What Comes First?

Most often, we’ll discover some of what we’ve lost first, and then pieces of what is left, and finally begin to get a sense of the possibilities that are open to us.

It’s hard to discover what’s possible in building a new life without first finding out what’s left in our old life to build on. And we often can’t see what’s left until we look around and come to realize what’s missing.

But this doesn't happen in nice, neat stages, one right after the other, where we finish one and then move on to the next. What is lost is usually more obvious at first, but we might continue coming across new discoveries of what’s been lost even years after the person died. These processes overlap and often happen together.

The important thing is knowing that as we struggle with these questions day by day — maybe not even consciously aware that we’re struggling with them — we’re growing in the new person we’re becoming.