Tamarika: It's all about grief (updated)

I find - I lost (How to Survive the Loss of a Love)

Oprah sent me this today - coincidence?

Like love, breakups change your brain chemistry. Don't let acquaintances belittle your pain or tell you to "just buck up." To speed your recovery, find a sympathetic ear.

Natalie Goldberg suggests making lists. I wonder if I could make a list of losses:

moving house, city, country, change of jobs, marriages, divorces, father dying, Charlie dying, leaving childhood, becoming an adult, giving up old neurotic habits, letting go of nemeses, graduating high school, leaving college, completing a PhD, leaving old friends, making new ones, different accents, speaking different languages, learning new cultural mores, giving up old ones, losing step-children, losing the way, learning new roads, leaving Wegmans, Gilad weaning, his circumcision, going to preschool, leaving UBCCC, children leaving me to go to kindergarten or first grade, teachers leaving to find new adventures, Gilad making his own sandwich for school, Gilad going to Israel for a year when he was eighteen, being kidnapped, loss of youth, loss of breath, loss of voice, finding it again, leaving Bob my therapist, Ziva my therapist, leaving Terry, losing Terry, losing Jenna, Jack and Diane, Nacho, Main and Bailey, losing my hibiscus tree, my sun room, smells of Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, movies with Judy and Alan, walks with Susan, Cheryl, Marion, Mar-Mar's kisses on infants' cheeks, nanny Margaret, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, my unborn children, losing dreams, realizing dreams, facing reality, adolescence, learning childhood heroes are human too, leaving on a jet-plane, over and over again, leaving Mom and Israel this past August, loving Naomi, Idit, Vera, Tali, Arik, Rivanna, Melinda, Swami Ji, Amaravati Devi, Trimurthi, Yigal, Nimrod, Andre, Barry, Maish, Dave, Louis, Robert, being 32, mikvah in the sea, dancing at parties

Tom Frantz says,