Working Through Lostness

After I had uninvited her, my friend Shirley Sessions showed up anyway. For several weeks she has been after me to join her for cheeseburgers from the Quarter on Tybee on a Sunday evening. I had told her that I would but when it came time to actually do it, it seemed like too much trouble so I told Shirley that we would do it another time.

Then Goddess started barking and wagging her tail as she looked out of the window. In walks Shirley with everything necessary to cook cheeseburgers. She was completely undaunted by by uninvitation.

So, we cooked cheeseburgers and homemade french fries and sat at the kitchen table and talked about our lost loves. We talked about how they may be gone but the feelings and emotions that we have remain the same. We talked the way friends talk.

Lost love is something that I see a great deal of in my life. Union Mission accommodates around 400 people each night. Most of them were either abandoned by their families or were the ones who instigated the abandonment. We have learned that many people who come to us for help were traumatized somehow as children. It may have been domestic violence that the child witnessed or addictive diseases or a parent who leaves them or a hundred other things. But the child never quite comes to terms with it so as they grow into adulthood, they become lost somehow. Not quite able to put it all together.

Everybody loses love in their life. The trick is working through the lostness and finding love again. Over the weekend, I was the recipient of many expressions of love. Katlynn Rae wrote me on Face Book and told me she loved me. Trolly Joe put his arm around me yesterday and told me too. Roma and I took a walk and she hugged me as we did as I told her about things in my life. Cheryl walked into the Breakfast Club and came straight to me for a long hug in the middle of a crowded restaurant. My friend Camile and I talked several times. And Bill Berry. And Jeremy calls and decides that a trip is in order so he calls his sisters and a plan is coming together.

These are the ways that we work through the lostness. At Union Mission, abandoned people fight to overcome the reasons that brought them to us. Staff help them because they don't have families or friends who encourage them with expressions of love. No one offers them opportunities to discover their self-worth. It is a long and difficult work to get them through their lostness. And it can be exhausting and heart breaking work.

But eventually, tragedy often leads to triumph and people rediscover the love that is in their life. And that is what get them through. Because that is what gets us all through.