The Whole Man

We all possess a distinctly unique identity.

Given to us by God, it’s inherent and unalienable, impervious to circumstance. It was with us the moment we were born and will remain with us until the moment we die.

But this innate form of identity is only a small part of who we are. There exists another, much greater form: an identity-by-reflection.

It is this second type of identity that is impacted by loss.

As I’ve been conducting interviews for my new book, The Lazarus Within, I’ve had more than one person tell me that it feels like they’re “living in two worlds.” When I inquired further, one woman told me it was if her tragedy had bifurcated her life, like a fork in the road, and now she’s forced to live in the space in-between.

I’ve also experienced this phenomenon – the sensation of being torn down the middle, of one life violently becoming two, of a split identity joined only by a beating and broken heart.

The reasons for this are complex and mostly beyond the scope of this post, but I recently read a quote by C.S. Lewis that brings it all into focus.

No one distills simplicity from complexity quite like Lewis.

In his book The Four Loves, he writes these words about three friends (A, B, and C):

“If A should die, then B loses not only A, but A’s part in C, while C loses not only A, but A’s part in B. In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets…hence, true friendship is the least jealous of loves.”

He’s talking about identity-by-reflection. The part of us that isn’t innate, but rather, is wholly dependent upon our interaction with others.

This is why loss seems to split us in two.

When Kailen died, part of me went with her. And as I lost friends in the avalanche of secondary losses that came later, my identity continued to collapse, splitting not just once but dozens of times.

I was no longer a man. I was a simple sum of shorn fragments.

Unfortunately, you probably know what I mean.

But the problem and the solution are one and the same.

Where the loss of community splices our identity into pieces, the re-establishment of new community welds those pieces back together.

New friendships rise like the dawn, slowly and all at once. They arrive unbidden, unsought, a silent answer to an unspoken prayer. And when they do, everything begins to change.

The road, once washed out by death and heartbreak, inexplicably begins to reform. The forks come back together in a miraculous confluence. Suddenly, there is no in-between; there is only the road and its whisper, gently calling you onward.

In those new friends, those impromptu welders, you begin to see yourself again. You, like the road, regain your shape.

Your loved one is still gone, so that part of you will never return. But in your newfound sense of community, in the eyes of your companions, you will find a reflection. Your reflection. And you might just be surprised by what you see.

Lewis goes on: “Friendship exhibits a glorious ‘nearness by resemblance’ to Heaven itself, where the very multitude of the blessed increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.”

You are not broken. You are not a simple sum of shorn fragments.

You’re you.

A slightly different version of you, but you nonetheless.

In the end, it is community that puts the pieces back together. That binds the bifurcation. It is companionship, as Lewis says, that “brings the whole man into activity.”

Choose to be a friend to someone this week.

For we’re all broken in our own way.

A fellow journeyer,

Bryan