Loss of the Loss That Was

Miriam was one of the first refugees to arrive in Beirut from Homs, one of the first you interviewed. You told her she should have been a philosopher. She had no idea what you meant. She loved being a hairdresser—well, would have if only someone in Beirut would offer her a job. Everything she had ever worked for was erased overnight by the war: the home she had decorated, the plants she had loved and watered, the clients she had nurtured.

There must be a name somewhere for what’s not there, Miriam told you on her second interview. A few years had passed since you last spoke to her. She grieved for what she’d lost when she first arrived, her family, her apartment, her job. But one day she woke and the grief was gone. Poof!

She had lost too much, she had a hole in her heart, and grief had rushed in like a high tide to fill it.

In time, her grief withdrew.

She now had nothing except for the hole.