It starts raining as I’m driving home from the hospital.

Normally the rain is background noise.

Today it’s different. The raindrops are splattering against the windshield with an urgency, an intensity.

As if they have something to say.

I listen. 1/

My mind focuses. The steady beat of the rain reminding me of something.

Raindrops. Tears.

I have thought and written about exponential growth, about the toll taken from caregivers, about parallels from history, about our need to connect.

Now I think about loss. 2/

We are in a period of time when numbers will become numbing in their recitation.

Perhaps they already are. Tens, hundreds, thousands, what does it even mean?

We can’t connect to numbers.

We connect to their stories.

The stories behind them. The stories they tell. 3/

We will not truly fathom our losses for many lifetimes yet. Some of us never will.

I’m not a philosopher, nor a psychologist.

I’m just a human being.

When I think of loss, I think of the everyday gaps left behind.

The spaces in between that are so subtle, yet devastating. 4/

There is a pair of shoes in a closet.

They were bought as a gift. They were used for running, and hiking, and for countless steps.

Those soles touched the dirt on Adirondack trails, the sand on Montauk beach, and the pavement on Madison Avenue.

They’ll never be worn again. 5/

There is a pet dog, waiting.

He is a little dog, but he has an oversized personality.

He has known only one owner since he was a puppy.

The entirety of his life has been spent in an unconditional love.

He will never see his owner again, and he won’t understand why. 6/

There is a red car parked in a garage.

It is gathering dust, which is something it has never done before. Not like this.

It has driven hundreds of thousands of miles. It has carried a man, and his family, faithfully.

It will be sold. Its stories will be forgotten. 7/

There is a sketchbook in a closet.

Its pages are filled with charcoal sketches. They are powerful, and fanciful, and beautiful.

There are stories behind every sketch. Moments in time.

There is one person who knows all the stories.

She will never get to tell them. 8/

There is a box of medals in a secret drawer.

They were given for bravery, for valor. The man who earned them never bragged. He kept them hidden.

But he would take them out now and then, and remember his band of brothers, and weep.

They will never be taken out again. 9/

There is a box of cereal on a shelf.

There’s nothing particularly special about this cereal. It is sugary. It is artificially flavored. It has bright colors.

And it was a young man’s favorite, since he was little.

He was the only one who liked it.

Now it is thrown away. 10/

No, we won’t understand our collective losses. Not for many lifetimes. Perhaps never.

My vision blurs with tears as thoughts linger, and I hear numbers in a steady recitation.

I watch the raindrops streak upwards on my windshield, as if racing each other to rejoin the sky.