When I was a kid, I watched the winter holidays shift for my family after my mother died. We no longer gathered with her family for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Instead, these holidays contracted, and it was just my sisters, my dad and me, each of us uncertain how to proceed as a unit.
And this year, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, I lost an uncle, and not being able to gather with family to mourn him because of COVID-19 restrictions has given me new questions about how to meaningfully honor his life without the usual traditions to direct my grief.
Any year, the holidays can exacerbate feelings of loss. But this year, so many events — including the nationwide protests about police brutality and systemic racism, as well as the lead-up to the presidential election, to name just two — mobilized many in the U.S. and contributed to a general atmosphere of grief. All of this, combined with a general uncertainty of what or who we still might lose as a result of this pandemic, can feel overwhelming.
It really is important to remember, too, that we all have different vocabularies for feeling in general. But grief is one of those really specific points of feeling.
Sometimes just meeting someone where they are is important and understanding that everything that we're hearing — everything that we're saying to one another, everything that I'm receiving from you — is coming through this huge lens of loss or fear or regret, whatever the circumstances are. And so, at this moment, this is your language for those things. And sometimes the way that happens with family is silence — and sometimes I think that's OK. Continue here...
-- Tracy K. Smith
