The Lost People

How do you define yourself when you lose the people you care about? When you've spent a life shaping your self around other people, around their thoughts and wants and values and needs? How do you work out who you are when they go? When they die. When they're taken prematurely, or when it just seems that way. When you have so many friends that you have to run the risk of losing more than your fair share every year. This year there have been three, but one has made a larger impression. He was the most wonderful person, and he didn't deserve to go like that. His girlfriend of two-and-a-half years has been leaving comments on his Facebook profile. I've been looking at his profile every day; it's as if I feel that by staring at it and willing him back, he'll come home to us. 

And you can lose friends in other ways too. Sometimes it's harder to lose those who don't die: those who fade away, those who leave, those who disown you for leaving your religion or who stop speaking to you because they're jealous of your relationships. When you've spent your life shaping yourself around people who go away, what happens to the shaped parts of you? Do they leave with them? Do you gradually become stripped of your self, bit by bit, piece by piece, as the people who know, love and define you leave?