Very few people know that 2019 was one of the hardest years of my life. For very personal reasons and to protect the privacy of those I love, I kept my tragedy contained to a very small circle.
Ringing in 2020 brought me some sense of hope, but to be honest, I was still knee-deep in shit. Surviving and caring for my family were my main goals.
So, when the pandemic hit just a few months later… while it was another added challenge, I largely felt as though I’d been through worse. So I tried to take it all in stride, another speed-bump on my already crappy road.
While the virus was scary, there was a much-appreciated silver-lining for me.
After months of wanting to curl-up in a ball and shut the world out, I was allowed, mandated actually, to slow down and stay at home. While many felt trapped in their own space, the shut-down offered me a much needed break and quality time with my family. It gave me respite. My family too-got a break from the busyness of the world. No more long commutes to far away schools and battling city traffic for doctors appointments and therapy. We could attend them in our quiet and happy little home. We could eat lunch together, every day. Family game night came many times a week instead of a pressured one. And we finally got a really productive garden in, after years of haphazard attempts.
For the first time, I was gifted the ability to work one of my jobs from home. I was afforded the time I needed to prepare our house to be sold. The stimulus check gave us just enough money to make the repairs we needed to. And the boom in the housing market gave us the perfect window to both sell and buy-landing us in our dream home.
Overnight, nurses became “heroes” and kind messages and free meals were popping up everywhere we turned. In many ways, it felt like a long-overdue acknowledgment- 16 years for me. Suddenly the hard work I’d been doing my whole career was “extraordinary”. While the work was hard, it felt good to make a difference and to be “seen”.
There was also a lot of hope. Stay inside for a few weeks and “flattened the curve”. “Do our part now so we can celebrate beating Covid this Summer.” While the scientists predicted another uptick and a grim winter to come, we focused on the longer days and sunny weather that had already begun to show. I was energized with hope, acknowledgment and my blessings at hand.
Despite the predictions many months ago, it’s hard not to feel like we failed-as a country and as individuals to contain this virus. With cold and dark days and the numbers climbing, hope is a scarce resource now. The side-walk chalk rainbows are long washed away and the drive-by celebrations feel stale now, while the morgues continue to overflow.
On the frontlines, the adrenaline has worn off. The quick sprint that catapulted us in the Spring has dragged into a painful, seemingly never-ending marathon that I didn’t train for. And this harsh Winter, is still just beginning. The “Heroes Work Here” signs are sagging. The ‘thank-you meals’ are long gone. And the lines on our faces, from the masks and the stress, are deeper now than ever.
I am sad and lonely and really fucking tired.
I miss the people I love. I miss travel. I miss peace of mind and reassurance. I miss comradery.
I am in grief. Grief awakens old grief. And it is easy when we are “down” to replay all of our losses- a pathetic tallying of all of the miserable things that have happened to us. It’s easy to wallow in the darkness and allow ourselves to limply fall down the rabbit hole instead of climbing towards the light-because falling uses less energy. God knows, energy is one thing we’re out of – we’ve been running on fumes for a long time.
It is easy in this dark world we are living in, for my mind to fill with all of the forms of tragedy and grief that I am faced with every day….
Family members and friends who suffer (often silently) with mental illness and traumatic histories, some hanging on by threads and others, the ‘non-covid’ losses in the pandemic.
Loved ones and icons gone too soon, often without warning or a chance to say good-bye.
Foster children, more of them now than ever, as in-home abuse escalates. And the foster parents who take on heavy risk to welcome a new exposure into their household for the greater good – who minister to children, who instead of feeling rescued… often feel like they’ve lost it all. Because all children love their parents and even their abuse/neglect was something familiar to them. Their resources are dangerously limited now and family visits are more challenging than ever with covid restrictions.
Perinatal loss families who have suffered the greatest loss there is-the loss of a child and all of the hopes and dreams attached to loving and parenting that child, many of whom can’t even hold a funeral right now. Their supportive family are kept away by travel bans. I meet new, tear-stained faces every week, that I am enlisted to guide on their heart-breaking journey. And I worry for them now more than ever.
All families of loss, whose family members are locked away in facilities that are desperately trying to keep their patients and workers safe… who are denied the visits and home-cooked meals we’ve become so accustomed to as we minister to the sick, now trapped in isolation, saying hello through a window and “good-bye” on an i-pad.
The loss of safety and security… of innocence and independence… peace-of-mind, freedom and joy.
So here I stand, a grief worker by profession, and all the tools I hand to others, in my own bag are now dull. Getting fresh air and sunshine, the cold air stings and reflexively, I turn away from it. My gratitude list has lost its luster. Chronic stress has my joints aching and real, therapeutic movement feels like an insurmountable chore. Healthy eating habits and avoiding excessive alcohol have never been harder when you are cooped up inside and comfort foods are one of the few comforts you have left. Virtual meetings, whilst a much appreciated technology, after so many months, leave my arms aching now for a human hug.
Yet so many people have it so much harder than I do right now. My complaints feel selfish and petty. I know that I am bathed in blessings and yet everything feels so empty and so hard right now.
For many months, I thrived during this pandemic, making the best of what we had and seizing every opportunity I could. But like everything, that too came to an end. Now I’m surviving.
It was a quote I heard on an episode of “Call the Midwife” when an older Jewish woman who had survived the holocaust ministered to a young girl in grief… she said,
“You will feel better than this. Just keep living until you feel alive again.”
So that’s where I’m at today. With a new year around the corner, I am trying to be hopeful. I am reminded that I have done many hard things before and that nothing lasts forever.
One day, I pray soon, I….we… will feel better than this.
So for now, we keep trying. Along with the cookies and wine, there’s dark-leafy greens. Despite, the cold, there’s windows to sit in and steps to run the laundry up and down for exercise. And in my nightstand, there’s a half-empty journal that I’ll half-heartedly scribble my blessings in, again… lest I forget them.
I’ll continue to soak in every chance I get to interact with the people I love-virtual or not; and to stop and gaze at sunsets, Christmas lights and other small beauties. I’ll continue to grow the game closet for fun, interactive, mind challenging family time; and I’ll keep trying to say “I love you” more. Because now more than ever, tomorrow is so very uncertain.
For everything that is good and worthy in this world, I will keep living… because I know from grief journeys in the past, I will one day, feel alive again. And every lesson, every hardship will make me stronger and more colorful than I was before.
Let this New Year, let this time, be a transformative one. And let us awaken… more alive than we ever were before!
Blessings and Hope for the New Year!
