Losing someone you love, no matter what the reasoning, is the worst thing you can go through in life.
I have lost love in my life more than once, both romantic and familial. These two losses have made me the person and lover I am today in very different ways.
Although the pain of it all can seem unbearable, losing someone teaches you irreplaceable things about love and life.
I’m someone who always loves with all of my heart. I’m an extremely passionate person, and definitely a bit of an old soul.
My nanny and poppy made me this way. I grew up living right down the street from them, seeing them almost every single day. I watched them love each other and love our family day in and day out, and I’ve listened to their love story more times than I can count.
They had a love like you see in the movies, and they were — and are — my role models in every aspect of life.
My nanny passed away May 27, 2012.
That day changed my entire life forever.
I lost someone who made me who I am. I could no longer walk to her house and get a hug to turn my day around, talk to her about the olden days to receive her words of wisdom or watch her and my poppy dance in the living room to Sinatra, reminding me love is real.
All of those things I depended on her for were taken from me, and the most loving woman I know was taken from this world.
Although I wish she could live forever, losing my nanny taught me irreplaceable things about myself, and who I want to be.
Losing Familial Love
Losing a family member can make you appreciate the little things in life. You will realize family, or whoever treats you like family, truly is everything.
Losing someone to death rather than losing him or her to a falling out of some sort is something you can never be prepared for.
No one wants anyone to die, especially when you have a good relationship with him or her. So when this happens, you go into shell shock.
You reevaluate your relationship, and you wonder if the person left knowing how you felt about him or her. You think back to all the times you should have done more or spent more time with the person. You wish you could have just a minute longer with him or her, and you hope you never have to feel this aching again.
In the movie "What If," I found a quote that fit this feeling perfectly:
When you realize how quickly everything can fall apart, it makes you never want to give up on anything good ever again.
This may not be true for everyone because sometimes, losing this kind of love can make you bitter or guarded. But this quote perfectly describes how losing my nanny affected me.
I became consumed by the idea of love and the legacy she left behind. I realized she was exactly the type of person I wanted to be like, and I became a better lover to others. But at times, I was a worse lover to myself after losing her.
During different relationships in my life, there were times I was not appreciated, times I was disrespected, times I was controlled and times I felt my love was unrequited. But, I stayed.
I’ve realized now, I always work at relationships, with friends or significant others, until my breaking point. After witnessing the love that radiated from my nanny’s life, I never want to give up on people I care about.
Am I wrong for staying until my breaking point? My close friends and family who care about me say yes, I’m absolutely insane.
If you asked me months ago, I would have agreed with them and said, "I need to stop loving so much."
Now, I know I will always love too much and too deeply because my nanny made me that way. I don’t know if I could ever change, but I finally don’t want to try. One day, it will all pay off.
If you can love the wrong people so much, imagine how much you can love the right ones.
Losing familial love can make you realize no love is easy, but all love is worth it.
Losing Romantic Love
I think it’s safe to say we’ve all gone through a breakup before; it’s pretty inevitable.
Breakups seem to happen more frequently in our day and age, and competition and temptation are always at our fingertips. But maybe losing love to those new dilemmas just helps us weed out the unworthy loves.
Losing romantic love takes you on an emotional rollercoaster — just as losing familial love does — but it's much different ride.
You have a different kind of pain when you lose a relationship to a breakup. The person you were in love with is still out there in the world, just living without you. That will hurt your heart, and it can hurt your ego even more.
Whether it’s a mutual breakup or not, you’ll always wonder about your ex.
What is he doing? Is he okay? Does he still think about me? Will I run into him? Why didn’t we just figure it out?
The wheels in your brain never seem to stop moving, and you will experience one of two outcomes. You will either become better, or you will become bitter.
Bitter is obviously not what we hope to happen, but it’s easy to get caught up in the end of things and forget all the good we can take from these endings.
You might become jaded about love, but that will only end up preventing yourself from ever finding real requited love. I vote you become better.
When you choose to become better after losing romantic love, you realize this heartache isn’t something just anyone should have the power to do to you. You become stronger and more cautious because it will (hopefully) teach you how valuable you are.
You’ll be thrust into a life where the most important relationship you have is no longer with your boyfriend or girlfriend, but with yourself.
Through this, you figure out what you really want and need in a relationship. And while torturing yourself with trying to figure out whatever made your relationship end, you’ll understand and prevent those same mistakes from ruining another love.
Losing romantic love in my life has made me a better lover to myself, and a more conscientious lover to others. I’ve realized how rare the way I love is.
You should never let losing romantic love change how much you love. Instead, it should change how easily you give your love.
I’ve gone from hopeless romantic to hopeful.
If you’ve loved and lost, like I did with my nanny and with past relationships, I’d say it’s definitely better than never to have loved before.
Every loss hurts, but every loss also teaches you something. And every experience makes you who you are.
The painter for my house might not come into my kitchen, and tell my mom that he wants to meet me because he’s going to marry me, like my poppy did when he first saw a photo of my nanny. But, I will have my happily ever after.
And until then, I’m happy because my poppy is my date for life.
