{"id":118,"date":"2009-10-20T14:34:44","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T14:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/10\/the-anniversary-of-a-loss.html"},"modified":"2009-10-20T14:34:44","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T14:34:44","slug":"the-anniversary-of-a-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/10\/the-anniversary-of-a-loss.html","title":{"rendered":"The Anniversary of a Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/IMG_2645.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_2645.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/84\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/IMG_2645-thumb-215x161-8673.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt;float: left\" height=\"161\" width=\"215\" \/><\/a><\/span>Two years ago today, my Uncle Craig died of lymphoma.&nbsp; For his 60th birthday just 3 month before his death, we gathered at a favorite fancy restaurant, where for celebrations the staff scatters little silver stars across the table.&nbsp; He playfully stuck one onto his forehead, making us all giggle.&nbsp; I later learned that he took a few home, shiny souvenirs in his blazer pocket.&nbsp; It was a special night.&nbsp; He was a special man.&nbsp; He&#8217;s gone.&nbsp; I miss him.<\/p>\n<p>Not to put too fine a point on the concept, but there&#8217;s a second loss-related milestone that I am observing today.&nbsp; And that is a 15-pound weight loss that began out of the stress of that time and that I&#8217;ve (pretty much) sustained over these two years. <\/p>\n<p>So it&#8217;s the anniversary of loss &#8211; the loss of my uncle, who I&#8217;m heartbroken will never come back, and also the loss of that weight, which I work daily to remain without.&nbsp; One feeling with two faces.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>The juxtaposition is sharp in my mind today.&nbsp; I could not control the cancer that cruelly took my uncle&#8217;s life, but I could control my eating and fitness choices to get my body into a place of balance and health.&nbsp; But even that sense of control is an illusion, life teaches me over and over again.&nbsp; And the truth is, we can&#8217;t really control loss in any form&#8211;we can only check in with it periodically, marking its anniversaries as time moves forward.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>How do you mark the anniversary of losses in your life?&nbsp; For my part, I might just hunt for some silver stars, and see if they&#8217;ll stick.<br \/><i><span lang=\"EN\"><br \/><\/span><\/i><strong>Like what you see? <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=FreshLiving&amp;amp;loc=en_US\"><font color=\"#023d89\"><strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a><strong> and get Fresh Living in your in-box every day!<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two years ago today, my Uncle Craig died of lymphoma.&nbsp; For his 60th birthday just 3 month before his death, we gathered at a favorite fancy restaurant, where for celebrations the staff scatters little silver stars across the table.&nbsp; He playfully stuck one onto his forehead, making us all giggle.&nbsp; I later learned that he&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[176,195,196,198,199,197],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","tag-cancer","tag-death","tag-grief","tag-loss","tag-lymphoma","tag-mourning"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Anniversary of a Loss - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/10\/the-anniversary-of-a-loss.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Anniversary of a Loss - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two years ago today, my Uncle Craig died of lymphoma.&nbsp; For his 60th birthday just 3 month before his death, we gathered at a favorite fancy restaurant, where for celebrations the staff scatters little silver stars across the table.&nbsp; He playfully stuck one onto his forehead, making us all giggle.&nbsp; I later learned that he&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/10\/the-anniversary-of-a-loss.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-20T14:34:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/IMG_2645-thumb-215x161-8673.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Anniversary of a Loss - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/10\/the-anniversary-of-a-loss.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Anniversary of a Loss - Fresh Living","og_description":"Two years ago today, my Uncle Craig died of lymphoma.&nbsp; 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}