Letter #15

In an introductory physics class, you learn that a body which leaves its origin and returns to it has a net displacement of zero. In these terms, it is indistinguishable from a body that never left

In an introductory physics class, you learn that a body which leaves its origin and returns to it has a net displacement of zero. In these terms, it is indistinguishable from a body that never left at all. This analysis only stands because there is no equation that accounts for how the body felt during and after the experience. This is where physics ends and where poetry has to begin. 

Whenever I speak to people who have survived a series of losses, they often ask a difficult and dangerous question: What’s the point? What’s the point of loving again if loss is a possibility? What’s the point of trusting again if betrayal can happen? What’s the point of laying roots when we were shown how easy it is to be uprooted? 

I always want to provide a rebuttal to this but I never know how to. 

A few springs ago, one of my closest friends became very ill. The severity of the situation meant that her treatment had to begin almost immediately after the diagnosis. So much changed overnight. Many things stayed the same. Everything she needed from me at the time was a natural extension of the ways we had always loved each other. We were suddenly in sterile settings, but we exchanged our witty remarks just the same. We laughed in waiting rooms and cried in the hospital parking lot. We talked through the complexity until a path ahead became clear. I held her when she was in pain, which she had done for me countless times before. That summer was strange, but we spent many days together and most nights apart. 

On our nights apart, I began finding it increasingly difficult to sleep. I would start the evening a little worried. I would search for statistics online, trying to find comfort in the numbers. I’m not sure why I kept doing this, because it never helped. No chances are small enough when the love is large. So I spent most nights consumed entirely by the horrific thought of a world without her. Soon, the thought would begin to haunt me in the daytime too. When I was alone and then even when I was with her. I knew that if I wasn’t careful, my fear of losing her would completely distract me from loving her. This wasn’t an option. So I decided to be careful. 

That year, I learned that to truly love we must completely and entirely surrender to the possibility of loss. I learned that predicting pain won’t make it hurt any less. I also learned that I’m not doing future-me a favour by constantly trying to anticipate her pain; I’m just doing current-me a constant disservice. I tried to befriend grief so I would be less afraid of it, I even wrote to you about it. I thought that I was being brave for my friend, but I was also learning how to be brave for myself. 

The truth is, the chances of loss are never zero, even if they’re slim. To truly love a mortal being is to be aware of - and yet unbothered by - the fact that you may one day lose them. And we lose each other to life just as often as we lose each other to death. Even non-mortal moments and eras of our lives are fleeting. Time never stands still. It takes you with it as it goes and you have to trust that you’ll be ready when the cue comes.

Tolstoy wrote that future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. 

So if you can’t lend love to the future, why borrow grief from it? Why not be generous and unsparing with the love you have while you still have it? And when loss comes, trust that you’ll know what to do with it. You always have and always will.

My friend survived her illness. We spent this summer exchanging witty remarks at botanical gardens. We navigated complexities across brunch tables. I cried in her arms at Stockwell station. Over the years, both of us have lost so much. But not each other. Not just yet. 

Please write back to me. Whoever you are and whatever it’s about. 

Salam,

Dinan Alasad