When the Losses are Winning

Losing feels worse than winning feels good. — Vin Scully, sportscaster

This has been a hard month…for a lot of reasons. Missing my Mom on Mother’s Day and knowing that the two-year anniversary of her death is just days away. It sucks. I’m trying to brace myself, but preparing for sadness isn’t easy. Mostly it involves trying to steel your emotions, hold back the tears, and tiptoeing around difficult topics. Notice I said trying because that’s all you can do…try. The reality is that my emotions will get the better of me, tears are inevitable and every topic has now become difficult. Then you add what happened in Texas.

What does that tragedy have to do with losing my Mom? A lot actually. My Mom used to say that one loss builds upon another. I didn’t get it at first. The worst part, she explained, was that the losses seem to pile up so that when you suffer a new loss you quickly relive the past losses as well. Sort of like an ugly, emotional scoreboard in a game you can never win. The school shooting in Texas just added another tally mark.

The daughter of one of the teachers killed shared this Facebook post, both a tribute and a love letter to her mother. My heart breaks for all the senseless loss, for a young woman without her mother and for so many parents without their children. My Mom, too, loved kids and not just her own. Her work life was a testament to that.

These senseless tragedies are adding up, the losses are in fact building upon each other. Everyone has opinions, but solutions feel so out of reach. Unfortunately, in two weeks this will just be another news story…until the next time. I know this firsthand as I was a TV reporter in Jonesboro, Arkansas when the Westside School Shootings took place in 1998. Twenty-four years later and it’s just the same news cycle repeating. Loss building upon loss. Like I said, it sucks.

Memorial Day is coming up. The anniversary of my Mother’s death is this Monday. Funerals are being planned for 19 little angels and their hero teachers. There is so much grief…. Still, I’m ever hopeful that things will get better and be different. I am willing to do my part and I will forever be looking for the win. Mom would want it that way.

Empty Chairs, Everywhere is a personal grief diary as I process the loss of my Mother to COVID-19.