We lose our childhood as we move into adolescence and our youth as we move into adulthood. If we live long enough, we will lose our health, our friends, spouses, and parents. It seems that for everything gained there is a loss. These losses can be overwhelming. How we respond to our losses, really determines the quality of our lives.
Loss only comes from caring.
The only way to not suffer loss is to stop caring. When confronted with the prospect of living without caring for anything or anyone, or facing the risk of caring and losing, it helps to put the pain of loss into a proper perspective. I began to think about what I would say to Tom if Buff was lost for good. I hoped that I could use this first small, but real, experience of loss for Tom to teach him some valuable lessons. The only problem was that I was not sure that I really knew how to deal with loss myself as evidenced by the intensity of the feelings I was experiencing over my own life's sorrows.