Loss

Most of you "bloggers" have already figured out that blogging is similar to keeping a journal that you share with your family and friends. It gives you a chance to express all kinds of feelings and events that are happening to and around you. This is great! So I thought I would take advantage of it and express some feelings about something I have been thinking about the last day or two. That is about loss. This word can mean a lot of different things to people and can change day to day depending on what our personal situation is. I had been thinking about some losses I have had and will have shortly. First of all is mom and dad selling their house. To me it feels like a loss. A loss of not just my family home where I have lived since I was 12 but also my kids spent a great deal of their growing up years there , a loss future memories that will not be made there, a loss of Christmas eve celebrations, a loss of always having a place to call home in Shoreline etc ... all the things most of you have already mentioned in your e-mails. Then I have been having this overwhelming feeling of loss as Brian and Kyle prepare to "move on" with their lives. They will soon be at a point where they will return more as occasional visitors (at least that's the plan)! Of course having them leave home is not just a physical loss of their presence here every day but of everything that goes along with it: friends, laundry, sports, school activities, attending church together, cleaning up after them every morning after they leave for school or work :) Then today at work I was really overcome with this overwhelming sadness watching families of patients have to face the fact that their loved one is dying. There is nothing anyone can to do stop it. I had a mom of a 52 year old who is dying of pancreatic cancer that has spread to his liver follow me to the door when I was leaving and she just had the saddest eyes. They were filled with tears as she talked to me and it was so hard. I had to sit at a table and try to answer the questions of this same pts dad who wants to know what he should "expect" as the patient declines and his death is imminent. Of course this is not the first time I have dealt with this in my job but in the last two days I have had 4 admissions with similar scenarios: cancer that has spread and there is no further treatment that can help. What I really know is that there is only one person that can truly ease our burdens and give us peace. I am so grateful I have this knowledge because to be honest I have no idea how people cope without it. "When words cannot provide the solace we need or express the joy we feel, when it is simply futile to attempt to explain that which is unexplainable, when logic and reason cannot yield adequate understanding about the injustices and inequities of life, when mortal experience and evaluation are insufficient to produce a desired outcome, and when it seems that perhaps we are so totally alone, truly we are blessed by the tender mercies of the Lord and made mighty even unto the power of deliverance. " -Elder David A. Bednar