The Art of Losing

It begins with the death of the childhood pet - the dog who refuses to eat for days, the bird or fish found sideways, dead. And you think the hole in the universe, caused by the emission of your grief, is so deep it will never be rectified. But it's only the start of an endless litany of betrayals: the cruelty of school, your first bastard boyfriend, the neighbour's son going slowly mad. You catch hold of losing, and suddenly, it's everywhere - the beggars in the street, the ravage of a distant war in your sleep. And when grandfather hobbles up to the commode to relieve himself like a girl without bothering to shut the door, you begin to realize what it means to exist in a world without. People around you grow old and die, and it's explained as a kind of going away - to God, or rot, or to return as an ant. And once again, you're expected to be calm about the fact that you'll never see the dead again, never hear them enter a room or leave it, never have them touch the soft parting of your hair. Let it be, your parents advise: it's nothing. Wait till your favourite aunt keels over in a shopping mall, or the only boy you loved drives off a cliff and survives, but will never walk again. That'll really do you in, make you want to slit your wrists (in a metaphorical way, of course, because you're strong and know that life is about surviving these things). And almost all of it might be bearable if it would just end at this. But one day your parents will sneak into the garden to stand under the stars, and fade, like the lawn, into a mossy kind of grey. And you must let them. Not just that. You must let them pass into that wilderness and understand that soon, you'll be called aside to put away your paper wings, to fall into that same oblivion with nothing. As if it were nothing.