It's The Little Deaths

No one ever really tells us about the little deaths that happen in our lives.  People never seem to take you aside to warn you that certain events, like divorce, will seem like a death. And that each of these deaths will eventually take a toll.

How do I explain this better?

I'm not thinking of the concept that we all start dying the minute that we enter this world. That's an accepted subject, I would hope.  I'm literally scratching my head over the fact that in a life time we will encounter certain situations that once we reach the other side, we will feel as if we have experienced a death.

We mourn the loss of a marriage that ends in divorce much the same way we would the way a marriage that ended unexpectedly in the death of a spouse.

We mourn the end of childhood for our children and eminent departure to college by labeling it the empty nest syndrome.

We mourn the ability to give birth to children through either the aging process or by the necessity of surgery to save our own bodies.

We mourn the loss of personal belongings lost or stolen....memories gone forever.

We mourn the loss of a job and the friends that we associated with it.

Hopefully we manage to gather ourselves up and move beyond our little deaths, our little losses.  Move forward because there is no going back.  And hopefully each of these wounds heals or at least scabs over so as not to hurt as badly as it did at the first. 

Some would say these experiences make us who and what we are.  Others would say that it's just life.

I say it's the little deaths that eat away at who we are, leaving us to wonder why.