Finding Meaning in the Ache of Absence

The pain of loss is heavy but are we missing the opportunity and what it is trying to tell us?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the people I’ve lost. I’m not sure if there was a significant trigger that caused this or if it’s just where my mind and heart have led me, but it’s been a tough few weeks.

Many of you have lost more than I have. There are losses that I cannot fathom that you’ve experienced. Perhaps the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, the loss of yourself. No, I’ve been fortunate but not unscathed.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather, it is one of those things that give value to survival. - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

In the past five years, I’ve lost my father, my best friend, and one of my most beloved mentors. All three men had a profound impact on my life in so many ways. It was in times of doubt, need, pain, or rage that I reached out to these anchors in my life, and they were always there. They delivered. They were my foundation when I struggled; they never failed to help and mold me into a better man.

Then they were gone.

Perhaps at my stage of life, with all of the changes (career, kids growing up, loss), I’m facing some stark realities. Those realities raise doubts and fears.

At any age, your father is a confidant. He’s walked the road before I did. Turning to him was always an option and yielded good results. I can’t do that anymore. Does a man ever really get over losing the one person in the world who truly wants you to do better than he did in this life? I think not.

I particularly miss my friend Brian. Brian was more of a brother than a friend. The kind of brother you might not speak to for six months, then pick up the phone and it's like you've been talking every day. He always brought me levity in any situation. When I was miserable, he’d make me cry — laughing. The level of encouragement was always off the charts. Even if he were struggling in his own life, he’d prioritize me and spend the time and energy to help me right my ship. I miss that. I miss him. I am haunted by the fact that I missed the last time he called me before he died way too soon, and what I would do to go back and be able to answer that call. Always make the time to talk to those you love, even if you think you don’t have the time.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

My mentor Jim Bolla always used to tell me: “Don’t worry, man, you’re talented and you do things for the right reason. It’ll work out.” He was that older male figure in my life who always had a sage piece of advice that could only come from experience, success, failure, and his own life's pain. As a young man, he taught me the value of hard work, the importance of relationships, and the importance of always following your moral compass. Yes, we all fall short of that at times, but in times when I struggled with relationships or career, Coach Bolla was there to coach me. Sure, I didn’t play basketball, but he saw the correlation between the game he loved, played, and coached, and success in life so accurately. I miss his advice and direction when I face tough decisions.

But why have these three losses been top of mind so much over the past few weeks? Why has the pain of the loss and the yearning to feel their presence in my life been so profound? I think C.S. Lewis said it best, again, in The Problem of Pain, when he said: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

God is shouting at me. I hear him, but I can’t quite make out what he is saying. I’m doing my best to listen and decipher. Perhaps missing these three important people I’ve lost is part of the message he’s trying to send. Possibly seeing what’s happening in the world, the past few weeks, like the Charlie Kirk assassination, is also speaking to me. I’m trying to figure it out, and Dad, Brian, and Jim used to help me decipher. Now, I’m on my own. Perhaps God is telling me something with that, too.

Then I return to Lewis and the work I quote here throughout, The Problem of Pain. In one of the most profound quotes from the book, Lewis says: “We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character.”

Clearly, God has more work to do as do I. I miss my family and friends, yet I know they live within me and that I am called each day to keep working on myself. This yearning for their presence and the pain of their loss isn’t a negative. It’s a tool for them to continue helping me.

Pain is a warning. It helps us see things we might not see otherwise. Trying to escape suffering isn’t what we should desire, despite how much it hurts. Instead, the suffering we feel in loss should prompt us to delve deeper into our own lives and what we can learn from it. It has value, and that value only brings us closer to being the complete person God intended us to be.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain