210219 But Today is Different

My son died 8 years ago. It's a part of my identity, generally only brought up twice a year (around his birthday and the anniversary of his death). 

One of the the reasons I returned  to my studies was to help me deal with his loss. 

Tao helps me remember I must try to find the right path through life. This includes the proper, natural dealing with loss. 

Stoicism helps me understand life is tenuous and to accept things out of my control. It reminds me that countless people have dealt with this loss and worse and survived. If they can, I can. 

What happened to my son is beyond my control. I can only control my reaction to it. 

It helps and it doesn't. 

I know I need to focus on continuing to live and on continuing to give my family what they deserve from me, despite my sadness. That I hurt makes no difference in my obligations to them. 

Left to instincts, to impulses, it would take no effort to be bitter, short, and unreasonable. Allowing myself to revel in my self-pity.  Poor me. I've lost my son. You must put up with anything I do lest you be thought heartless. 

Or I can choose, consciously choose, to remember that I love them and still have them. I should be a loving father, husband, brother, son, and friend despite all else.

Having served the initial years of madness, rage, depression, and apathy, I find myself in a . . . different . . . place now. 

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Our society conditions us from childhood two Proper Responses to loss. 

Our first option is inconsolabe madness. Wailing and gnash teeth. Rending of clothes and performing acts of rash cruelty to others, justified by our grief. This is right. This shows how much our loved one meant to us. We are beyond rationality. To act differently is to admit you loved them less....

An acceptable alternative is loss of affect. Stone silence and utter withdrawal are allowed as normal, too. (Though you may be expected to perform the proper purificatio of madness at a later date.)

These prove you loved your lost. Lest people wonder and whisper about your devotion or lack thereof.  Mere acceptance is often seen as admission you carried less than proper affection in life.

Or maybe maybe I need an Imax screen for my projection here.

I don't know. I'll probably never know.

I'll just deal with it. I always do. I have no choice in the matter. It is what it is and I can only choose my response to it.

Memento mori. Amor fati.