How will we grieve in this pandemic?
1.10 | May 24, 2020 | Faith, Hope and Love in the Time of Corona
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
1 Cor 13:13
IMAGE: bernswaelz
If we could underline one of the major fallouts of this pandemic, it is grief. It seems as though an epidemic of grief is unfolding right before us. It appears very unreal, until it probably hits us personally. But is it only personal grief that we are currently experiencing?
Early this week, my aunt Mary passed away after having contracted the virus. A woman of deep faith and courage who had struggled and bravely navigated her life between Goa, Karachi and later Toronto; the bereavement of her loss was also marked by the circumstances of these times. While grieving for aunty Mary would normally have taken place in the physical presence of her loved ones, the social distancing imposed by the pandemic had forced her family to mitigate their absence by being connected through livestreams — her two priest sons in Karachi and North Charleston celebrated the Eucharist for her, while her sons and families buried her not far from her home. Even as the family tried to linger on by sharing photographs and anecdotes, it was evident how the pandemic has been changing the way we now grieve.
However, when we look around, what is even more disconcerting is the manner with which numerous peoples have been left to grieve alone — and this does not include the thousands who have died nameless, with no one to grieve for them. Humans have universally learnt to cope with grief with the presence of each other — but how will absence now make us live with grief?
Beyond the intimacies of personal grief, we are now also faced with collective grief. The looming thought of death over a sustained period of time awakens within us a sense of pre-grief. What lies ahead? Can there be hope? Besides death, grief takes on new meanings when faced with loss of jobs, academic life, personal accomplishments and community. At a humanitarian level, our grief is compounded by government apathy, the displacement of migrants and injustices that dispossess the poor even further.
On a personal level, Nora McInerny argues that we don’t “move on” from grief; we move forward with it. However, if we have to collectively cope with our grief, we also need to be able to name it. Joe Pinsker presents us six experts who explain how to recognize the many new faces of grief during a pandemic.
As we encounter grief during a season of Easter, the words of Sr. Maryanne Loughry give me hope:
“We do know that we are going to get out of this, and that there is another side. We know this time will pass. We don’t know when, but we know it will.”
FAITH
Living with pre-grief amid a pandemic
Pre-grief is not the absence of hope. Somehow, we can mourn what is passing away even while we work to preserve it.
Ellen B Koneck | America | 4 May 2020
And because I have known this feeling, I know pre-grief is not the absence of hope. Somehow, we can mourn what is passing away even while we work to preserve it. Forethought of grief can motivate; it can intercede. It can see the dead end—the death, the end—and demand a creative response instead of resignation. We are not wood drakes or herons, nor even (I am sad to say) turtles. We give forethought to grief. And although I have not learned to mimic the heron’s stoic composure, “The Peace of Wild Things” does give me peace. I rest in the realization that I am acting—like the heron and drake, the stars and still waters—as I was made. Humanly. And thus with the capacity for forethought, that great power of anticipation that makes possible both grief and hope, long before either has been born out in time.
HOPE
All the Things We Have to Mourn Now
Six experts explain how to recognize the many new faces of grief during a pandemic.
Joe Pinsker | The Atlantic | 1 May 2020
Death is more present than it usually is in daily life—people are surrounded by reminders of it in the news, in stories from friends and loved ones, and in the sirens of ambulances.
Carmen Inoa Vazquez: Right now, a lot of people are experiencing a sense of communal grief—they may feel like this could happen to any one of us, and they may know people who have died. Some people who have lost loved ones in the past will tell you that eventually—and the amount of time varies—they started to take a different approach to life and find meaning in the loss and in their future. So during and after the pandemic, maybe people will try to pay more attention to their unfulfilled wishes, or have conversations with loved ones that they may not usually have and affirm their love for those people. In this way, the pandemic can bring unity and connection, and help us deal with our mortality.
On top of its death toll, the pandemic has also stripped away many aspects of life that give it joy and meaning—canceling graduation ceremonies, causing layoffs, unraveling visions of the future. These losses are more abstract than deaths, but grieving them is no less valid.
Pauline Boss: The loss of having answers to questions, the loss of a routine, the loss of freedom to go out and do what we please, the loss of being able to hug our loved ones and be with our friends—those are all major losses, and they have to do with the relationship between ourselves and the changing world. These losses are not the ones we have sympathy cards or rituals to deal with, and grief for these losses often gets stuck because there are no supports for it. When nobody notices or acknowledges it, that makes it so much harder for the people who are experiencing it. What we need to do now is name these losses. You can’t cope with something until you have a name for it.
LOVE
In Harm’s Way
As countries ease restrictions on public life, health care workers around the world continue to risk their lives — and those of their families — to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Despite their stoic selfies, they feel scared, grief-stricken, guilty they can’t do more. In submissions and interviews, they reflect on what they have witnessed, the decisions they have made and how the pandemic has changed them. The Times will continue adding the stories of frontline health care workers.
The New York Times | 4 May 2020
We said a little prayer together over the phone and I asked, “Does she have a favorite song?”
Daniel Akinyemi (Nurse), Montclair, New Jersey, US
There were cases in which the whole family got sick and died. It feels like a war.
Liu Taotao (doctor), Beijing, China
It’s a medical situation, but it is also about the soul.
Claudio Del Monte (chaplain), Bergamo, Italy
Being the only black pulmonary and critical care physician at my hospital has made my experience very different.
Geneva Tatem (doctor), Detroit, US
I am living with guilt and sadness that I couldn’t help in time.
Nabeela Arbee-Kalidas (doctor), Johannesburg, South Africa
Postscript
We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it.
In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let's face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. “A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again,” she says. “They’re going to move forward. But that doesn't mean that they’ve moved on.”
Nora McInerny | TED Talks | November 2018
Wishing you faith, hope and love,
Rinald D’Souza SJ
HISTORIA DOMUS
For it is not so much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul,
but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth.
The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, #2
What is Faith, Hope and Love in the Time of Corona all about?
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