Loss of love theme 4

Loss of Lover, Partner, Relative, or Friend

Obviously I wouldn’t want you to write on this if you’ve recently had a loss,  although you might well find it healing even if you don’t show anyone what you’ve written.  But different people have different attitudes.

You can write an entirely fictional piece.  Or write something a little like your  own experience but made into fiction.  One way of treating this subject is simply to give some examples how things were between you when the relationship was good.

Or of course you could focus on the cause of the rift, if there was  an identifiable cause.  

Or you could simply describe the loved person, not just their appearance, but work, interests,  funny incidents.

You could talk about the people, or enter the thoughts of one or the other.   You could have the narrator speaking to the lost loved one in his/her imagination,  or speaking to a trusted friend about him/her. As so often, it’s mention of details that brings things to life.  What a good image of sorrow the photo above is.  Is it possible to ‘say’ it in words?

At the end of the  Tennessee Williams’ play,  The Glass Menagerie,   Tom who has deserted his mentally ill sister, Laura, can’t shake off the memory of her.   When he sees  some glass figures in a shop he remembers her collection of them.

“I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. . . . I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. . . . I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!”