Love is a losing game. Or is it?

On love and loss.

Here

This past week, a friend of mine lost her father suddenly. The news felt like an assault. I had just recently messaged with her about him. He’d been visiting her on the West Coast from Cairo. I saw pictures of them playing pickleball together. My heart hurt. What could I possibly know of what her heart was feeling?

In the past years, my family suddenly lost my maternal grandfather, and his youngest son, my uncle. Death comes so swiftly, taking an axe to our hearts. My mother lost her father and younger brother within two years. Two years later, one of my best friends called from Dubai one morning, sobbing. Her two nieces and sister-in-law had been in a fatal car accident, and her brother woke up to find himself with his entire family gone in the flash of an eye.

I have lived in many cities and places over my lifetime (Abu Dhabi, Connecticut, Cairo, Boston, Washington D.C, NYC) and with each chapter closing, there is a letting go, a loss. The greater the love for the place and its memories and people, the greater the sense of loss.

These are but a few examples of the many losses over the years.

You, too, have lost people, things, places you have loved, have you not?

Another friend this week posted an excerpt of a poem (In Blackwater Woods) by the luminous Mary Oliver:

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

There

That is a heart-aching truth: everything temporal that we love, we will eventually lose, either by separation, death, change, or the mere passage of time. And yet…we love anyway. People, dreams, places, things.

The brilliant C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, The Four Loves: “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.”

I have a loved one in my life who is deeply sensitive. A romantic. A lover. He is a confirmed bachelor who has been hurt many times by love. Even the suggestion of him getting a dog elicits a response of “But then I would love him/her, and be heartbroken when I lose them”.

It reminds me of what is often said about cynics: that a cynic is what a romantic becomes after having believed too deeply and lost too much.

And confronts me with this thought: is that courage or cowardice? And I cannot help but think it is the latter, with a dash of comfort-seeking in the mix.

Beyond

So then, what shall we do? How do we deal with this tension — the fragile ache of loving in a world where loss is inevitable?

We have two options, as I see it:

1. We can decide not to love. Avoid attachment to avoid suffering. Detach. Save ourselves from the impending pain of loss. Akin to the Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment. Here, the core idea is that attachment (love) is the origin, the root of suffering. Attachment to people, outcomes, desires, etc. The goal is to be liberated through the release of clinging. Buddhism says: Let go. Loss is inevitable, so release your grip on what you cannot keep. Hold with open hands. The pain of loss lessens when we loosen our need for permanence.

2. We can decide to love. Love fiercely, love anyway, even knowing it may break our hearts. To give ourselves over to it. To commit instead of detach. To be vulnerable, bear the pain. Suffer, hope, endure. This is more akin to the Christian philosophy of love. Here, God is love. Love is the highest calling and nature of God, and we humans are made in his image, to also love. In Christianity, Christ didn’t avoid suffering, he entered into it, even to the point of death, for love.

I believe the option that corresponds more truly with our human design is the second option. Of course, this is colored by the fact that I come from a Christian world-view and have chosen to live by, and see the world through it. I believe that to be human is to attach — to people, to place, to our Creator.

But even were I not, I cannot imagine a life in which we each simply detach and save our hearts from heartbreak. For two reasons:

1. This is a life constrained and restrained. To the extent that we experience love and happiness in that love, we will experience pain in loss. The higher the highs, the lower the lows. If we don’t want the lows, we will not have the highs and the fullness they bring. That feels like a life less-lived to me. Would we forego all the laughter, tears, hugs, cuddles, eye-crinkling, hand-holding, deep soul talks, to save ourselves the pain?

2. This is a heart hardened and cold, instead of soft and tender. The full C.S. Lewis quote continues (see italics below):

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one... Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements... It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

My sister signs her emails “veni. vidi. amavi.” – We came, we saw, we loved. A poetic twist on Julius Caesar’s famous phrase: "Veni. Vidi. Vici." — I came. I saw. I conquered.

I believe love is, yet, our highest calling. May we spend our lives loving so well that our grief proves it.

What about you?

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you, and create a conversation here.

What do you think of this question? To love or not to love?
Where are you being invited to love, even though it may cost you?
Where are you afraid to love?

• Leave a comment with your thoughts on those questions.

• Forward this to a friend who lives between places.

• Or just hit reply—I read every note.

Thank you for reading. Until next time,

Sherry