Learnings From Loss
Lesson's in Loss, Love and Resilience
I try to avoid the mindless scroll of Instagram or Facebook, but every now and then, a powerful message finds its way into my feed. I don’t have to agree with every comment to take something meaningful from it.
Recently, I came across an interview where Anderson Cooper was speaking with Stephen Colbert. For context: Colbert lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was just 10 years old. Cooper also lost his father at age 10 to a heart attack, and later, at 21, his brother died by suicide. So when these two men sat down to talk about grief, the conversation ran deep.
At one point, Cooper asks:
“You went on to say, ‘What punishments of God are not gifts? Do you really believe that?’”
Colbert replies:
“Yes. It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that.”
He goes on to say:
“I don’t want it to have happened. I want it to not have happened, but if you are grateful for your life… then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for.”
And later:
“What do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person… which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it’s like to be a human being if it’s true that all humans suffer.”
This exchange blew my mind—but it also felt deeply familiar.
I remember the night we received the call about Alaina’s murder. I was on the phone with someone at Pepperdine University, while news reports still claimed that many people might be alive and hiding in the building. I asked, “How many other students are still unaccounted for?” I was hoping she’d say there were still many being checked in, maybe some at hospitals. But her response was quiet and definitive: “None. Just Alaina.”
A strange sense of relief came over me. Was it the knowledge that no other family would have to endure the same pain and grief? I don’t know. But that feeling of relief echoed in Colbert’s words.
“I don’t want it to have happened. I want it not to have happened, but if you are grateful for your life… then you have to be grateful for all of it.”
I don’t expect everyone to understand that, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree. This is just my story—and one of the many small lessons I’ve taken from loss.