Catastrophic Loss - 2020

 

‘Catastrophic loss’, according to Jerry Sittser in his book A Grace Disguised, is when you lose something permanently, something never to be right again.

Sittser is of the opinion that catastrophic loss leads to confusion of identity. The situation with Anke and Markus is considered to be a catastrophic loss. They will never get ‘well’; they will never become ‘normal’. Sittser further says that we understand ourselves in large measure by the roles we play and the relationships we have; we find ourselves in what Sittser calls a ‘vertigo’ when these are changed or lost forever.

Our Anke-and-Markus reality makes us function mostly on the outskirts of ‘normal’ life when it comes to life’s milestones. ‘Exclusion’ is the word that jumps to mind. We function behind the wings on life’s stage, mostly reluctant to fully step forward and participate in community. We have grown into our own warped sense of belonging over a period of 40 years.

In my head I am still a young dad, because Anke and Markus will forever be infants. In my psyche, my life got parked at age 32 on a sunny afternoon near Tarlton by the side of the tar road under a cluster of dusty blue-gum trees. I had to stop – or rather, the car rolled off the road and came to a stop – for a long time, as I was blinded by tears after the truth about my children had been told to us. We said goodbye to Anke and Markus under those trees that day. No more hopeful denial, only truth. We left our perfect, normal-in-our-heads children next to the road under the blue-gum trees and in their stead buckled up two beautiful broken little strangers into the kiddies’ seats in the back of the car.

You’d think one learns over time to deal with catastrophic loss. The reality is that you have to deal with it from day to day. You learn to navigate your normal life around it every time it hits you. Some days are better than others. On days when it really catches up with you, like yesterday, you just go into deeper isolation than usual, dealing with it the best you know how for that occasion. It, too, usually also passes, until the next time.