But what about you are just minding your business and dusting and keeping the grass cut and you strike up a friendship with a neighbor. A nice neighbor whom you respect. He is not elderly but WHAM! His worth becomes apparent to Warren Buffet or the United Arab Emirates or the Association of Retired Persons. He is offered a job in a nice place at a better salary. Of course, he is going to move away. Of course, we will promise each other to "stay in touch", even though we never have touched each other and don't expect to. And, of course, that is not what happens.
It is not just worth that moves the levers and sets the wheels of loss in motion. An excellent local official is lonely and lovely. Uh-oh! Loss approaching! People aren't' stupid, you know. They aren't blind, either. Lonely and lovely shows. A person of the opposite gender sees the loneliness and the loveliness and makes an offer. WHAM! Another loss! "Come with me to a better place. A nice place. A place where we can live well." Bye-bye.
It helps a little to remember that suffering is ennobling, that I accumulate gift points in paradise for pain visited on me that I bear. It helps a little that people of worth to either organizations or individuals are needed elsewhere and get to go where they are needed. But that consolation is a little weak.
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