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How is your grief today?
How is your grief today?
How is your grief today?
The questions come from an exercise I did in my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit in 2015. For five minutes, a person would ask the same question over and over again. Usually, the initial response would be something like “it´s okay” or “I’m not feeling any grief today” but the repetition of the question would soon invites us into connecting with the grief we carry around with us. This was during “normal” times.
It’s been a year since the shut down because of the pandemic started on our side of the world and I am asking myself today “How is my grief?” Perhaps, you, too, spent the first few months of this pandemic in survival mode; scared, anxious and with your social ties severed. It is also likely that you, too, fell into a sort of new rhythm that allowed you to carry out with your days, get work done, and figure out how to stay connected with those you love.
Did it happen to you, too? That a beloved one died and you could not see them before they died and that you were left with the memory of the last time you spoke, the last picture you saw, the last time you were together?
It is still March 12th, it’s been a very long March, a very long waiting and we know for sure that the world, when we finally leave our homes and reunite with others, won’t be the same anymore. A year ago or the last time I remember March, we didn’t know how long we were going to wait and thought that two weeks, a month, would be enough. This still March, we see some hope in vaccination happening everywhere now: hope of future hugs, hope of seeing those we love, hope of community, hope of freedom to be outside our homes without fear.
But it is important that we pause, intentionally and willingly, to check in with ourselves, to check in with one another and ask “How is your grief today?”, rivers of tears may flow but in the process we will remind ourselves and one another of how human we are, of how hard this has been. In sharing our grief we may remember that we are not alone in this experience. And after the tears, the counting of all the damages left behind by this pandemic storm, we will begin again to rebuild, to create, to join the calendar again on its passage through time.
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