“If we don’t take the time, however, to process any kind of grief that may have impacted us over the past year, we are missing our chance to heal”
When I agreed to write a piece about grief– I second guessed myself and thought– really? You’re volunteering to carve out time to actually sit down and write about being sad? Not surprisingly, it took a few weeks to actually get started. I had to have the help of my coach to put it on my calendar so that I knew it would get done. And even this morning, in beginning the piece, there was a slight hesitancy as I sat down in a comfy spot in my home and sipped my coffee.
From the time I agreed to write about grief until now– almost three weeks has gone by. And in that three weeks, I’ve been more aware of the signs I’ve seen pointing to different kinds of grief. I saw an Instagram post from Brene Brown that highlighted the grief of losing the hundreds of thousands of lives during this pandemic. The church near our home had an advertisement for a “Griefshare” program during the evenings. A text came through from a family member noting a different way to view grief– not as something you move on from but something that you “tend to”. In my own life, I have been through a level of personal grieving for the last 6 months as I worked through a program that helped me see I was buffering the feelings of sadness, pain and grief (pick your poison here, as we all do it to some extent). We lost a matriarch in my husband’s family and experienced not only that grief, but the grief of not being able to physically be there to say goodbye and help to support his family.
And I would be remiss if I left out the life changing event that introduced me to grief at 13– the loss of my father to cancer after a two-year battle (meaning I knew at some point closer to the end that he had lost and had to live with the knowledge that we were going to lose him). Being 13 at the time of the loss, the next several years (high school and college) I developed two significant relationships that, in a way, subbed in for my mother and father (although we did not lose our mother). These were the mother and father of two very close friends, one I still have today, and both of them died of cancer before I finished college.
So when I think about grief, sadly, there are too many instances in my life to write about in this piece as a handful more come to mind immediately– one of them being a high school friend who was ejected from a Jeep at 16 and dying on impact. But, for this piece, I am going to write about the grief that I believe is the most relevant in this moment and that, in way, is being overlooked, shoved under the table, or put on the back burner as we get vaccinated. In order for our society to heal, it needs to be addressed.
And this is somewhat ironic, as I truly believe we are in a period of hope. Hope in that the winter is leaving us and the opportunity to get out and be in the sunshine more often is near. Not that I don’t love winter– I actually prefer it– but know that most lean more towards the warmer weather and Vitamin D. Hope in that several vaccines are now being distributed and we have the hope of being vaccinated by the end of this summer. The hope that making actual plans whether personal or professional could be on the horizon by the end of the year. The hope that I’ll see family members, friends and colleagues that I haven’t seen in almost 18 months. And most of all maybe, the hope that we learn from what this past year may have taught us about ourselves, our country and our tiny place in this universe that could be gone in an instant.
But, one of the reasons I agreed to write this piece, is that I am a firm believer we have been through so much grief, as a collective group and as individuals, in the past year. By this point we know the number of lives lost, the number of jobs lost, the number of necessary workers that put their lives on the line every day, the number of children that lost summer and what Christmas usually looks like, the number of marriages that could have either suffered or thrived with the way life shifted and changed almost overnight and we know all of this could be changing again shortly for the better as vaccines are available.
If we don’t take the time, however, to process any kind of grief that may have impacted us over the past year, we are missing our chance to heal. And it’s hard. It’s hard to sit in grief and let the feeling of that move through your body and even worse, your mind. It could go on for days or it could move rather quickly and only cause a quick time of discomfort. It could feel like a knife through your heart, a sinking feeling in your gut, an overall sadness in the limbs and bones of your body– who wants to feel that? Who wants to sit in that?
Many won’t have the chance as this is something that almost has to be taught and then practiced by the one grieving. Many will have the chance as grief is not new to them and is something they have processed through most of their lives. There will be people dealing with different types of grief, in different ways, and at different levels and there should be help for everybody. We have a huge chance to bring into the light the ways this pandemic could have impacted our mental and emotional health. And thankfully, I have seen this in many different forms, scattered across different publications and feeds, so I know that it’s surfacing to the top in different ways.
As I close this piece, I would invite you to acknowledge your grief of the past year. It doesn’t matter if you’re grieving the loss of sitting in your favorite restaurant, losing your job, or losing a loved one– the list could go on and on. Just take the time to give it some space in your life and allow for it to be there. And if you need help– reach out to someone. This doesn’t mean reach out to a psychiatrist for medicine or begin talk therapy for the next 5 years. Pick up the phone and call a friend. Go for a walk with a neighbor. Journal. Meditate. Whatever it is that will allow you to face your grief and allow it to be something that you “tend to” as you are able.
My name is Olivia and I am UNCrushed
