C.L.C (Cumulative Loss Case) 66741-07-23

They lost almost everything in a single day. One lost a husband, one lost a daughter, one was left with a disabled son, and all lost a father. Since then, loss is present in every corner of daily life, in every breath taken. Each carries her own bereavement and scar, yet all rely on one another to keep from collapsing.

It fell upon me to try bringing order for the family, figuring out where to begin: rights, allowances, grants, discounts, widows, orphans, parents, disability. Each had a category, sometimes more than one. Every board, form, and document required them to define anew what is fundamentally indefinable. The cold, meticulous bureaucratic apparatus was not built to hold such magnitude of grief. No legal language can summarize a heart-wrenching longing in the night or the sense that the world has ceased to be safe.

Often unable to fix things, I simply listened when I had no words to offer, attempting to hold the silence with them even when unbearable. I witnessed how they lived with endless pain and an unclosed story, while the world outside carried on as if nothing had happened.

Above all, I discovered the heroism of life in small, mundane moments - the courage in deciding to live life to its fullest, each in her own way, each with her light emerging from the shadows.