We’re all different people, all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember the people you used to be.

—The Eleventh Doctor

I was having a conversation with this professor I know about healing “ministries”, or care professions in general. When we spoke about the kinds of losses that people encounter, most of the examples we talked about were to do with the death of oneself or someone else. “Loss” was understood in a very dramatic and literal way. This was until I pointed out that people experience all sorts of losses, usually associated with change. My mother has long said that I don’t deal with change well, but the older I get, the more I sense that this is actually true of many people, not just me. Perhaps this has unconsciously biased my understanding of other people’s troubles, or maybe it’s allowed me an insight to interpret them well. I really couldn’t say for sure, but it seems to me that much of our grief comes from loss, even the good things.

Let’s start basic. People feel loss when a loved one dies, and they mourn. They feel loss as they get older and lose the ability to do some of the things they used to enjoy; and so, they mourn. These are the kind of things that we may usually think of when we think of loss, but we can take our understanding much further. Things start to get a bit more abstract when we think about people mourning entire seasons of their lives: I, for one, may mourn the carefree innocence of childhood in my 20s; the middle-aged may mourn the youth of their 20s; and so on. That’s one thing, but we can even mourn identities—or roles—that we’ve held at times in our lives, like motherhood or fatherhood, and this is where things begin to get complicated.

It is difficult to notice the tragedy of parenthood until you’ve experienced, and no, I’m not talking about a tragedy-tragedy, like when someone leaves their kid in a hot car. I’m actually talking about something pretty normal: your kids growing up, moving out, having their own kids, those kids growing up, and moving out, having their own kids, ad infinitum. In that time, a parent is (ideally) a caregiver, and they cling to that role for their child or grandchild’s sake. But there comes a time when they no longer need you to care for them (maybe the tables have turned!), and what then? You’ve lost your identity, and must mourn it.

Still, we could take it even further. Even a change of job or moving might count as mourning. Any kind of change, really. Most you might not even notice, since we all tend to end up running at the speed of life and can’t slow down; but it’s true! I know what you’re thinking: “Paul, that’s barmy!” However, it in fact makes a great deal of sense when you consider that change implies the cessation of one state of affairs for another. Even on a molecular level, parts of us are constantly dying and being reborn over and over again. And maybe we don’t care about molecules, but consider that with each moment, every passing thought, you become someone new, someone you weren’t even a few seconds ago. You see, one of the greatest illusions we create for ourselves is that of permanence, but in fact nothing is permanent at all. Loss is a perpetual force in life; and in fact, while we typically think of loss in dramatic scenes from the end of life, it actually takes place in the subtler fields of our everyday lives.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The loss of one thing makes space for another. The death of “self” is a fresh start. The loss of a job means the experience of a new one. The loss of one home means the introduction of another. Even the loss of a loved one, who is irreplaceable, makes space for you to love other people as well as be there with those who loved them. That’s yin and yang on a basic level: each opposite, while complementary, paradoxically exists in some level “inside” its opposite. This is another illusion: duality, or separation.

So, while you experience your own losses, understand that there is something to be gained if you plumb the depths of your grief. Likewise, if you gain something, there may be losses that may slip by if you’re not attentive. All of which is to say, everything is impermanent, nothing is static, and while this may cause us much grief, which is entirely natural and appropriate, it doesn’t need to cause us anxiety. To that end, I want to share the story of Zhuangzi’s mourning his wife’s death, which brought a smile to my face the first time I read it:

Zhuang Zi’s wife passed away, so his old friend Hui Zi came for a visit of condolence. When he arrived, he saw that Zhuang Zi was sitting on the ground, drumming a pot and singing a song. He did not seem to be grieving, and this seemed very inappropriate to Hui Zi. 

He said to Zhuang Zi: “What are you doing? Your wife has been there for you all those years, raising your children and building your family with you. Now she is gone, but you feel no sadness and shed no tears. You are actually drumming and singing! Isn’t this a bit much?”

“It’s not what it looks like my friend.” Zhuang Zi faced Hui Zi’s emotions. “Of course I was struck with grief when she passed on. How could I not be? But then, I realized that the life I thought she lost was actually not something she had originally. During all that time before her birth, she did not possess life, a physical form, or indeed anything at all. She ended up in exactly the same state, so she did not lose anything.”

Her death was a transformation, just like when she was conceived and born,” Zhuang Zi continued. “In that state between existence and nonexistence, her initial transformation gave rise to energy. That energy gave rise to a physical form, and that physical form took on life to become a human being. Now it’s the other way around, as her continuing transformation returns her to the Dao. This whole process – from nonexistence to life, from life back to nonexistence again – is like the changing of the seasons, all completely in accordance with nature.” 

Hui Zi nodded. Somehow, Zhuang Zi’s behavior no longer seemed as inappropriate as before. He said to Zhuang Zi: “Since the transformation is perfectly in accordance with nature, it is not something to be sad about, just like you and I would not cry over autumn changing to winter.”

“Yes. She is now resting peacefully in the hereafter, without all the constraints and limitation of life. The more I think about that, the more silly it seems to cry my eyes out. I will always miss her, but it is not necessary for me to grieve for her as if her death were a great tragedy.”