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Some of us lose a lot more than a job, an opportunity or a friend. Some of us have to lose parts of our very own being, losing a limb – how do you describe that? I regret greeting him with a smile on the day of his amputation. He didn’t smile back.

Status – Post Mastectomy – a fancy term for the patient whose breast was chopped off a day ago. “How is your pain?” I ask her, she looks at me in unhappy silence wondering which pain I’m talking about, the one painted on her chest or the one etched on her soul?

One day, a girl with freckles shows up in her first clinic visit, the husband accompanies her. “That little ball in your scan; it’s a tumor. You have to lose it. I’ll take it out”, says the recently divorced surgeon (who has lost someone, too). “Everything will be fine, my love”, says the husband to the girl. His words make the lady surgeon a little envious. To her surprise, in all the follow-up visits, the girl with freckles comes alone with no companion, no husband, no hand to hold which explains a lot. The surgeon calculates all that the patient has lost and compares with her own losses. She’s not envious. Not anymore.

“Keep my mother alive till my brother’s wedding”, begs a daughter oblivious to her mother’s pain. The daughter’s not ready to lose. Not yet. The mother doesn’t want to live anymore. I know because I spoke to the patient when her daughter was in deep slumber. The mother is ready to lose herself. The daughter, however, never learned this art.

What do I say to the bearded man whose son didn’t wake up after surgery? That he is alive according to the monitor; yet I don’t see any life in the body lying on that bed. That his son has embarked on a journey I know nothing about. That he’s going to lose him like a lovely dream that died in sleep.

Ammi tells me that on the day of judgment, I’ll be reunited with all the people and things I’ve lost. But what if I don’t want to meet them again. “Teach me the art of losing”, I demand from her. I question her: How do we lose gracefully without a mess, silently, dry-eyed? (an unforgiving question) “Some questions will be answered only on the day of judgment”, she puts an end to our conversation.