We all face losses differently. Each loss bears its own weight and creates its own indentation in our lives. Some loss comes through a second-hand experience; for instance, when a loved one loses someone they were close to. Sometimes the loss we experience is deep and profound and leaves us laid out for weeks or months. This kind of loss has a dizzying effect that disorients our lives. Sometimes the loss we experience is actually good for us, though I suspect we rarely know this — or at the very least, are able to admit it — at the time. There are some losses that require patience for healing, and some that require forgiveness. All loss requires distance to gain perspective.

Then there is the kind of loss I faced this year: one subtle and lingering. A loss I thought I had dealt with only to learn I was carrying a ghost around with me. 10 years ago my step-dad committed suicide and the weight of that still lingers. When it happened, I grieved like everyone else grieves but then I prided myself on getting over it. I went to a therapist for a year. I talked about it with others. And then I moved on.

Or so I thought.

It wasn’t until this year that I realized the lingering effects and unfinished business. It occurred to me that whenever I shared a story about my step-dad it was almost always negative. I used my stories to put him in a bad light. As I became aware of this, I realized I still had a lot of anger and hurt around his death. I used these stories to exercise my anger against his memory. It was my way of getting back at him. If he wasn’t going to be here to shout at, I could at least shout at his memories. Unfortunately, these memories were being held captive to that same anger and I was unable to find any forward movement in my healing.

That is until this past year. As I look back over the course of the year, I see a number of what Howard Thurman calls ‘landmarks’ in my life. But none of them are quite as powerful as the recognition of my own “membership in the human frailty,” as Thurman writes:

“In the long way that we take in, in our growing up, in the vicissitudes of life by which we are led into its meaning and mystery, there are established for us, for each one of us, certain landmarks. They represent discoveries sometimes symbolizing the moment when we became aware of the purpose of our lives; they may establish for us our membership in the human frailty; they may be certain words that were spoken into a stillness within us the sound thereof singing forever through all the corridors of our being as landmarks; yes, each one of us has our own…” — Howard Thurman

Here is how that landmark took its shape over the last year.

Through a course of events things began to change for me. I was asked to write a chapter on my experience of fatherhood. “What do I have to say about fatherhood?” was my response to the invitation. Yes, my spouse and I have three young children under the age of 6, but I feel like I’m still too fresh in the whole thing to have much useful to say about it. As I began to reflect on my total experience of fatherhood, I realized I had a story to tell.

In the process of reflecting on this decade-old loss, I returned to the wound itself and worked my way out from there. I began to see that healing from this loss required forgiveness, and a re-narrating of the story. This wasn’t a retelling to whitewash the bad memories, they are still there. Instead, this new edition includes all bits I edited out in my anger. I also let go of the shame and allowed myself to enjoy some of the ‘good times.’

Memory steeped in forgiveness is a lot more freeing than memory bound up in bitterness.

The ability to approach my own history with forgiveness — afforded, no doubt, by plenty of distance from the event itself—enabled me to tell a story about my step-dad’s life that I wouldn’t be ashamed for him to read, and didn’t make me feel dirty telling. This is what helped me move towards healing last year.

In all of this, I learned that loss is subtle and its effects can be lingering. That loss requires forgiveness and often a returning to the wound itself to tell a new story. It also requires, at least it did from me, an honesty about where I was really at in the grieving process. Saying to myself, “Yes, I am still am angry and hurt” was harder and more honest than I was willing admit at the time.

So what about you? What are your landmarks from the previous year? What are your losses? Your challenges? Your celebrations? Are you finding your way towards healing?

When it comes to loss: What matters is being able to discern what kind of loss has impacted your life and teasing out what the best response is to that loss. Diagnosis is essential. Healing does not mean a neat and tidy story where everyone lives happily ever after. It is more like a scar that is healed over. That scar is visible to you and anyone you should show. It is a landmark you carry for the rest of your life. However, once it’s scarred over, it no longer inhibits you, the residue of pain is much more subtle, and forward movement becomes possible again.