In my current study I have found that my conceptualization of these words have shifted a bit. Before starting my program the idea of loss and absence was only associated with the loss of a loved one, an external and relational loss. Whether it was their death or the ending of a relationship there was no longer someone you deeply cared about in your everyday life creating an absence and all then processed through through the idea of grief however that may manifest for a person. 

However, in my study the concept of loss and absence has gained an additional meaning, loss and absence can also reflect internal and psychological experiences. When thinking of loss and absence from a psychoanalytic view those words could be used to describe what is called a lack. A lack is a concept that developed from the fundamental incompleteness or the missingness of someone's needs being met, shaping one's subjectivity and the unconscious. Mostly defined in childhood from a parental relationship, am lack can manifest into maladaptive behaviors, emotional instability, attachment issues and more. 

Therefore, from this perspective people can grow up experiencing loss and absence at a very early age and experience it within themselves instead of the departure of another. With all that being said in my line of work is it very important to acknowledge loss and absence because that is typically the starting point for a lot of therapeutic work.

I watched my mémére’s  Alzhemer’s progress over seven years and then I watched her die. My mémére’s bedroom was right next to mine throughout my teenage years.

I sometimes felt like her sister. The moments when she was lucid and telling me about her career and old friend reminded me not to preemptively put myself through grief that I would experience later regardless. 

I couldn’t help but feel her absence even when I was one wall away. 

I think about her in everything now, with every strong emotion. She taught me how to sew. I can feel the healing that community events like this* bring me. It is a blessing that I can feel so deeply, and feel grief in everything I do.

I spent most of my middle school and high school convinced that my brother was going to kill himself. For good reason, he was extremely depressed. I would come home from school every day and stop at his door for a moment… he would get home before me and I was afraid of what I was going to find. When he went off to college, I convinced myself that every phone call was going to be the college telling us he was no longer here. I spent years grieving him. He’s better and happier now, but I’m still scared at every text or phone call from him. I think I’ve grieved him so much already that I won’t be able to do anything but be resigned if it actually happens (maybe I won’t care). 

Last December, I lost my grandfather to a fatal brain bleed. I remember waking up to Thanksgiving morning to my mom crying & saying that he had collapsed and his brain was bleeding. It was painful for me knowing he was suffering while I could do nothing from across the world. After 7 days in the hospital he passed & I found myself whipped to the other side of the world to attend his funeral. It was a strange week of grieving & I still feel as though I lost a part of myself and home. 

I TRY TO GRASP ONTO ANYTHING THAT I’VE LOST OVER THE YEARS. I’VE TRIED TO GRASP ONTO PEOPLE WHO I’VE LOST, WHETHER THAT BE THROUGH DISTANCE OR DEATH, I WANT TO HOLD ONTO THEM. WHEN THEY INEVITABLY SLIP THROUGH MY FINGERS, I REVERT TO A TIME I’VE LOST A LITTLE LESS, MY CHILDHOOD, THOUGH THROUGH CONSTANT EXPLORATION OF THAT. I’VE LOST MANY THINGS & PEOPLE THEN, TOO. WHETHER IT BE A LOSS OF A HOUSE, A RELATIVE, OR INNOCENCE AS A WHOLE. I REMAINED HOPEFUL. NOW, I TRY TO REMAIN HOPEFUL THAT NO MATTER WHAT’S LOST I CAN MOVE FORWARD WITH A GENTLE MEMORY OF THEM IN EVERYTHING I DO. 

I wear my mother’s clothes a lot. After she died her clothes were packed up, but I took them out because I knew they wouldn’t be missed. I took them because in a very tangible sense there is a lot of her left in them. The memories that were once shared between me and my mom are now shared between me and garments that I took out of bins, from a closet they were meant to be forgotten in. When I wear her clothes I can picture the times when she did before me. I can feel and see her experiences and movements in the wear and repair that they carry. And there are memories that aren’t shared between me and the fiber, the mends and stains that form a record with lost context. These clothes are the only thing I feel comfortable sharing these memories with most of the time. I don’t need to speak to the fibers for there to be an understanding. That connection will always be twisted up in the clothes, nested between the fibers that saw wear before me and see wear now with me. But I get some sort of comfort adding new holes, new patches, new stains to my moms clothes because it feels like I’m continuing a history. I tend to the threadbare fibers that surround a patched tear, worn and patched and worn again. And the lasting process of repair and reinforcement I add to my mom’s clothes is, for me, the same as the growing mending and resilience I add to myself.