Losing it

So loss seems to be a common theme for lots of people in my life: loss of love, loss of family, loss of religion, etc. etc.
It's like that poem says - "The art of losing isn't hard to master."

I'm a little harried at the moment, writing papers etc. Plus I don't feel like hashing out my present crises of faith and friends on the internet just yet.

Instead, here are three well-written things I've read this semester that are all about loss:

"And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end."

-Junot Diaz, This is How You Lose Her

"Appalled, the child watched the quarrel mount and spread. He began to cry quietly, to himself, knowing that it was a different weeping to any he had experienced before, that he was crying for a different pain. And the child began to understand that they were different people; his father, his mother, himself, and that he must learn sometimes to be alone."

-Leslie Norris, "Blackberries"

"Now I come home from work and look for his regular-size shape walking and worrying and realize, over and over, that he's gone. I pace the halls. I chew whole packs of gum in mere minutes. I review my memories and make sure they're still intact because if he's not here, then it is my job to remember. I think of the way he wrapped his arms around my back and held me so tight it made me nervous and the way his breath felt in my ear: right."

-Aimee Bender, "The Rememberer"