Sometimes it takes an unexpected new friendship for you to realize something new about a part of your life that literally consumes you. A part that you think about at least 20x a day, if not more. And a part that has made you feel more emotion in your heart, mind & gut in the past almost 5 years than you’ve had in the last 27 years combined. I do believe that with all that description it’s quite obvious that it’s a pretty important part of my life that I just learned something new about. And that new thing is that a loss is a loss is a loss is a loss.

I’m not sure how many of you follow a page called In the Blink of a Fly, but you should. Because this Mom of 4 taught me this the other night, though I know she will modestly not accept the credit. You see, she lost her husband in an extremely preventable, farm related collision. I won’t go into all the details of how because you can get them on her page, but the point is that she lost something that was legally tied to her. Her husband. Someone who she had kids with. Who she had a house & a mortgage & a life & a farm & loans & titles & a family with. So many, many ties holding them together by bonds that seemed unbreakable, yet here she is. At a loss.

And then you have me. I lost something that was literally attached to my body. A something that should be pretty hard to lose since it’s connected by muscles & tissues & skin & bones & sockets. Something that I took very good care of by exercising & eating right & keeping protected & caring for when bumps, bruises & cuts came along. But yet, here I am. At a loss.

We have both lost things that we knew could be taken from us but didn’t seem like they should be. Because we are us & we are good people. The things we lost were good people & good legs. And we thought if that some day we did have to, lose the things, we would at least get to say goodbye. At least got to have one last hug or kiss or run or walk and actually know it was our last one. So then we could take in every last detail & really remember it. Yet here we are. With fuzzy last memories & holes in our hearts where legs & husbands used to be. We both have felt loss. Mine was just more physical & hers was more emotional. And despite the route that the loss came, we have both found ourselves relating to each other. Me, to the mom who lost her husband & now has 4 kids to raise on her own. And her, to the mom who lost her leg & now has to figure out life & parenting as an amputee. Losses that seems worlds apart actually have turned out to be just next door neighbors. And that’s because, like I said before, a loss is a loss is a loss is a loss.

When we go through a dark moment in our lives, sometimes it’s hard to get ourselves to relate to others around us. They haven’t climbed our mountain, so how could they possibly understand!? Well, they might not have lost what you lost, their hair from cancer or their kidney from a genetic disease or their husband from a crash or their leg from a rare flesh eating bacteria, but they probably have lost something important to them. Not many of us make it very far in life without experiencing this emotion. Then it’s on us to make that connection. I would consider her loss far greater than that of a leg. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t view it the opposite way, even though I really hope she doesn’t. Loss is like comparing apples to apples. They might come in different sizes & colors & sweetness or bitterness, but they are apples nonetheless. So today I challenge you to remember that. Because you might find comfort in an unexpected place. And in a world that anything can be lost in the blink of a fly, we must hold onto comfort as long as we can…

#TheOneLeggedMommy #InTheBlinkOfAFly #Losses #Amputee #Widow #Connection #DontShopWhileDriving #NecrotizingFasciitis #UnexpectedFriendship #HipDisarticulation #Awareness #DontTextWhileDriving @In The Blink Of A Fly