Every love is car­ved from loss

Let me tell you a sto­ry, the Dial went on. The house that your gre­at-gre­at-gre­at-grand­mo­ther and I moved into when we first beca­me mar­ried loo­ked out onto the small falls (…). It had wood flo­ors, long win­dows, and enough room for a lar­ge fami­ly. It was a hand­so­me house. A good house.
But the water, your gre­at-gre­at-gre­at-grand­mo­ther said, I can’t hear mys­elf think.
Time, I urged her. Give it time.
And let me tell you, while the house was unre­ason­ab­ly humid, and the front lawn per­pe­tu­al mud from all the spray, while the walls nee­ded to be repa­pe­red every six months, and chips of paint fell from the cei­ling like snow for all sea­sons, what they say about peo­p­le who live next to water­falls is true.
What, my grand­fa­ther asked, do they say?
They say that peo­p­le who live next to water­falls don’t hear the water.
They say that?
They do. Of cour­se, your gre­at-gre­at-gre­at-grand­mo­ther was right. It was ter­ri­ble at first. We couldn’t stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were fil­led with nights of inter­mit­tent sleep and quar­re­ling for the sake of being heard over the water. We fought so much just to remind our­sel­ves that we were in love, and not in hate.
But the next weeks were a litt­le bet­ter. It was pos­si­ble to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild dis­com­fort. Your gre­at-gre­at-gre­at-grand­mo­ther still cur­sed the water (who­se per­so­ni­fi­ca­ti­on had beco­me ana­to­mic­al­ly refi­ned), but less fre­quent­ly, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quie­ted. It’s your fault, she would say. You wan­ted to live here.
Life con­tin­ued, as life con­ti­nues, and time pas­sed, as time pas­ses, and after a litt­le more than two months: Do you hear that? I asked her on one of the rare mor­nings we sat at the table tog­e­ther. Hear it? I put down my cof­fee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing?
What thing? she asked.
Exact­ly! I said, run­ning out­side to pump my fist at the water­fall. Exactly!
We danced, thro­wing handfuls of water in the air, hea­ring not­hing at all. We alter­na­ted hugs of for­gi­ve­ness and shouts of human tri­umph at the water. Who wins the day? Who wins the day, water­fall? We do! We do!
And this is what living next to a water­fall is like, Safran. Every widow wakes one mor­ning, per­haps after years of pure and unwa­ve­ring grie­ving, to rea­li­ze she slept a good night’s sleep, and will be able to eat break­fast, and doesn’t hear her husband’s ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is repla­ced with a useful sad­ness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The tim­bre beg­ins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt les­sens. Every love is car­ved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren’s will be. But we learn to live in that love.
(Jona­than Safran Foer – Ever­y­thing is Illuminated)