Grief In The Time Of COVID

Spring is my grieving season.

The anniversary of my parent’s car accident is May 16th, marking 34 years since they passed. That date is flanked by Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day; and in the past five years, I’ve added two more significant losses to a one-month span between April and May. Amidst the rebirth of spring blossoms, I’m often moving between the dull ache of longing for the memories I want to hold on to, and the anger for those I will never have.

And that’s just spring status quo.

Currently, grief is all around us. We’re mourning the loss of life as we knew it. Emotions are heightened and yet my usual process for moving through them has been upended. 

There’s no hugging friends or gathering with people who knew and loved my mom and dad.

There’s no feeling the energy, the empathy, and the compassion from the group of motherless mothers with whom I meet monthly at a local wine bar, with a full glass of happy-hour-white in hand.

Without my time-tested ways to move forward while my senses are absorbing a new level of noise, somehow the people I’ve loved and lost feel distant. My connection to them is dampened. My memory is cloudy.

Lucky for me, creativity struck when I asked myself, “How can I acknowledge both the new grief of life in the pandemic and find my people again?” The answer came in a place I often find my flow: writing. But this time, not with a blog post or a journal entry. Writing in the form of an old-fashioned letter.

Pen to pretty piece of stationary, I’ve been writing each of my lost loves a letter about what this time is like, what I miss most about them right now, what I need from them, and my thoughts as to why they may have been spared living in 2020.

I write through tears and occasional smiles. I’ve found each letter to be a visit. An invitation for us to stand in a new memory together, even for just a few minutes. The details of this new connection flood my mind, followed by the old memories I thought I lost.

In this new budding practice, I am learning that there will be times so fraught, complex—and even identity-shifting—that talking about my parents and others I’ve lost is not enough to be with them. In times like these, I need to set up a direct line, with focus, attention, and presence. To bring them into my world—through words—even though this moment will never truly be part of any of our lives.