Our lives are shaped by loss

Life is about losing. We lose those we love and much more, including eventually our own life. These losses are part of life, and we must respond to them. The philosopher Judith Viorst argues in her book Necessary Losses that our losses shape us, make us. I haven’t yet read her 400-page book—and perhaps never will (there’s another loss)—but I have read the introduction, and I took these words from that. I find them compelling. As I read Viorst’s introduction I inevitably thought of Elizabeth Bishop’s great poem One Art https://acairnofpoems.com/2024/08/18/one-art-by-elizabeth-bishop/ that begins: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” Viorst writes: “When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is far more encompassing theme in our…

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