Robert's Stories

Most of us have had to deal with unhappy circumstances, a feeling of loss. Dumb as we are, we are not prepared to deal with the reality of the situation.

Even in the case a tragedy where the feelings are legitimate, it is hard to get over it.

Mentality, we eventually come to grips with it, but emotionally that is another story.

King David had an adulteress affair and it involved murdering the woman’s husband. To complicate matters worse the woman got pregnant and he brought her to the palace, took her as his wife and waited for the child to be born. When the child was born it was sick unto death and David prayed for the healing of it, but alas it died.

Then David did an unusual thing, he rose up washed himself and returned to his responsibilities. He dealt with both the mental and the emotional because when it was over it was over and he accepted it and moved on.

I once found a car for sale and it was perfect, just what I wanted. I and the owner went back and forth on the price and I finally gave in for I thought there will never be another deal like this one.

I told him I didn’t have the money on me but would give him a deposit to hold it for me while I went to the bank for a loan. I got the money and returned to find he had sold the car to someone else. I went through all the reasons why the car was mine and he shouldn’t have sold it. He said someone came along with a better offer and he let it go.

It took me a long time to get over losing that car, mentally I knew what had happened, then came the, “If only.” If only I had the money, if only I had left someone with the car and so on.  Emotionally that was my car, I could feel myself driving it, playing the radio, washing and waxing it.

This feeling went on for some time because I wouldn’t accept the truth about the matter. I felt cheated, violated; I had been treated like I was a second class person when all the time I had performed according to our agreement.

Then I realized I was grieving over something I never actually had. True I had made a deposit on it, but it was never mine even though I felt like it was.  I had touched it, sat in it and enjoyed it for a brief moment but it wasn’t really mine, it just seemed like it.

Everyone has had a similar experience.

One of the most difficult things to deal with is the getting dumped; this tears you up in many ways. Its goodbye trust, goodbye self-esteem, farewell love, hello hate, hello anger, hello wanting it back like I thought it was, and the whole spectrum of thoughts and emotions. An experience you never wanted or expected, but like me and the car you are grieving over something you never really had.

How do I get over this experience and hurt? The first you need to know is; you will get over it - - when you want to and not until then.

David let it go; he had the funeral and considered it done, over with and acted like it. Soon he had another child and the memory of the other was just that, a memory.

In the same way I found another car which in fact was better than the one I had been grieving over, and I thought how foolish I had been, grieving over something that was never truly mine, as if it were.