Grieving the Impact of A Global Pandemic

There is much to grieve in 2021, now that the shock of the pandemic and resulting months and months of quarantine are wearing off. 

Not acknowledging through naming and feeling and facing the grief and loss we've experienced results in not being able to move on and forward with hope and joy in the future. 

Here are some named losses, but what would you add to the list? 

• We grieve the deaths of loved ones - permanent losses. 

• We  grieve the future we have to face without those loved ones who died because of the pandemic, whether from the actual disease or because they could not get medical attention due to overwhelmed medical systems. 

• We grieve not being able to grieve together at the funerals of these loved ones. 

• Even when the pandemic ends, our world is forever altered. We can never go back to how it was before. We grieve a lost world. 

• We lost a year of in-person relationships and being "present" in key events of loved ones. Graduations, weddings, births, bridal showers, dying (last moments) and death. We grieve all of those losses. 

• We grieve how our lives were disrupted. Our personal and global narratives are forever marked by "the pandemic." 

• Future loss will often find their roots to losses in the pandemic. We grieve what is to come directly due to the pandemic. (Anticipatory grief)

• We grieve the loss of finances due to loss of work. 
• We grieve the loss of our desired routine. 
• We grieve the loss of opportunities 
• We grieve the loss of traditions we could not engage in due to quarantines. 
• We grieve the fear now pervading the world. 
• We grieve the changes of public life and having to wear masks. 

It's important to realize that "Grief stays with us in some profound way. Our relationship with it might change, and to the extent we haven’t processed it, another big grief down the line may trigger a prior grief. All of our grief has a past and a future. It finds its place on the timeline of our life.  One loss triggers another loss that preceded it." (Nicholas Collura)

This past year has produced heightened sense of 

• loneliness
• being out of control,
• concern about our mental health
• feelings of isolation, chaos, uncertainty
• feelings of our life was being waster or passing us by because we couldn’t do what we want to do,
• a unique time of personal and collective trauma
• feeling despair for the earth, society, and the world
• the feeling that the pandemic and resulting tragedy is keeping us from participating in something meaningful

These feelings and the losses associated with them - a loss of the innocence of not having them are all significant results of the pandemic to grieve.  

We all have grief work to do, and it's crucial to recognize that doing this work is fundamentally an invitation to growth and healing; it won’t be easy or pain free.. It's also important to recognize that grief is not the enemy; rather, grief is our own spirit’s best attempt to respond to the antagonism of loss.

Grief is natural, normal, not easy, but it’s sacred. It is a time to turn to God, the God of all comfort, and grieve with Him.  He grieves these losses that we experience and he is present in our losses and griefs. 

What do you need to go and grieve today?