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“My Losing Season”

by Pat Conroy

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     Sports books are always about winning because winning is far more pleasurable and exhilarating to read about than losing. Winning is won­derful in every aspect, but the darker music of loss resonates on deeper, richer planes. I think about all the games of that faraway year that played such a part in shaping me, and it is the losses that stand out because they still make their approach with all their capacities to wound intact. Winning makes you think you'll always get the girl, land the job, deposit the million-dollar check, win the promotion, and you grow accustomed to a life of answered prayers. Winning shapes the soul of bad movies and novels and lives. It is the subject of thousands of insufferably bad books and is often a sworn enemy of art.

 

     Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass. My acquaintance with loss has sustained me during the stormy passages of my life when the pink slips came through the door, when the checks bounced at the bank, when the despair caught up with me. It sustained me when my mother lay dying of leukemia, when my sister heard the ruthless voices inside her. Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.

 

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