Of Loss and Light: Redefining the Myth of America

We are told who we are, and then we undo the telling...I carry stories forward into the dark mist of America. We become the stories we tell ourselves.

Growing up, one of my favorite Bible stories was the story of Jacob’s Ladder. In it, Jacob dreams that he sees a ladder going to heaven. At the top of the ladder is God, and God tells him that the land where he sleeps is his. Angels are going up and down. I liked imagining this part. Did they fly? Did they need to hold on?

According to the Bible, God gives out land to men. God gave the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the women had to bear children. I liked the angels on the ladder, but I knew I wasn’t climbing that ladder. I wasn’t having God give me any land. That wasn’t my story.

We are told who we are, and then we undo the telling.

Elvis Presley felt he had to do something with his life. “Your brother would have made the family proud,” his mama told him. “But he died, just 35 minutes before you were born.” Elvis didn’t want to disappoint her, and he changed the world with his music, which you still hear throbbing through Nick Cave and crooners everywhere.

Salvador Dali, the famous Surrealist painter, learned to trace his name on his brother’s gravestone. As a kid, his parents took him to the graveyard and told him he was the reincarnation of his brother. Later, he said, “Every day, I say to myself, I wonder what tremendous thing this Salvador Dali will do today?”

Vincent Van Gogh’s father told young Vincent that his brother, born stillborn, would have really been something. That haunted young Vincent. He grew up half mad, trying to make up for all that genius the dead brother had. He did his best, and his best burst open the world of yellow. The world of sunflowers, the world of art and cornfields, hay and stars. By the time he killed himself, he’d sold only one painting. His other dear brother, Theo, died six months later of syphilis.

John Coltrane’s mother, Alice Blair, lost a baby before John came. “Born alive, now dead,” she wrote. His mother wanted him to do something big. He started playing the clarinet at twelve, then the sax. At thirty-six, he was playing Carnegie Hall.

Carl Jung, whose mother lost two daughters and a son before he was born, wrote that many children carry the burden of living their parents' unlived lives, but if a child has died, there are other unlived lives to carry.

My favorite is Kate Hepburn, whose brother Tom died. She became him—her father’s son. She called herself Jimmy, dressed as a boy, took up the mantle of son, became the replacement male heir.

Other children of loss include: Frida Kahlo; Princess Diana; Peter Sellers; William Shakespeare; and Rainier Maria Rilke.

Of tragedy, of loss, come the people who step into the light and try to make something great of all their inherited grief. This is the story of America. We have inherited a country that started with a dark story, the myth of conquest.

But we must undo the telling. America, we were never exceptional.

When settlers arrived in the Americas, an estimated 56 million Indigenous died, while two million enslaved people—of the 60 million enslaved—died during the Middle Passage. The original settlers thought that God gave them America. They could kill off the natives.

People also used to believe that ships fell off the flat earth. I know people who still believe that. I think of those monsters who wait for ships to fall. When we see women and children snatched off the street, we know the monsters are among us.

Coming into July of 2025, most of us in America are afraid. Sixteen million poor people just lost health insurance while the top 1% got a trillion-dollar tax cut. Unthinkable excess. Our country needs compassion, a just society for all of us who live here, available health care, food, shelter, jobs. Many don’t feel they can make a difference. But we in the 21st Century are the children of loss, and we must be willing to acknowledge the tragedy, rewrite the myth, become the heroes of our country.

Nelson Mandela and Gandhi changed history. Neither of them were rich or powerful. But they carried their country forward toward justice. They brought a commitment to reconciliation, peace, and human rights.

Every day, I ask myself, if I have the rest of my life to make a difference, what can I do? I am not here to breathe and pay the rent; I’m here to leave the world a better place. In 2025, I carry stories forward into the dark mist of America. We become the stories we tell ourselves.

Those children of loss had a mission. We can be changemakers.

Who are you as a hero, my friend? How will you live a different story?