This feeling of grief

So here we are, locked down and shut in, waiting and praying for the first wave of coronavirus to pass. As a kid swimming in the Atlantic, I learned early how to dive under the breaking wave, to avoid feeling its force, emerging beyond it safe and sound. That’s the point of sheltering in place, too: avoiding the virus, letting it pass by like the angel of death on Passover.

I mind this enclosure much less than I expected to. As an introvert, I should not have been surprised. My husband and son are working from home, but I still have ample time on my own. There are so many things I could be doing around the house. I’ve done none of them. I can't seem to move.

As a hospice chaplain and vigil volunteer, I think I’m grieving for people I don’t know. Working with dying people and their families, I know how important the gathering of loved ones can be to a patient’s peaceful transition. Family members telling funny stories, praying together, watching those last breaths: these are the experiences families remember. And in a vigil, when the patient’s family is not local, very often that only person there is me. I’m not family, but I can hold a hand, sing a hymn, offer comfort. 

This is what hurts: not only that coronavirus patients are dying, but that they’re dying alone. No visitors are permitted — the risk of contagion is too high. Doctors and nurses all love their patients, but at the best of times they have little opportunity to sit at a bedside. I fear many patients are dying quietly, all on their own, perhaps unnoticed for a few minutes due to the rush of duties. And then trundled off to the morgue, or to that special horror, the refrigerated truck, when the morgue is full. And then the phone call to the devastated family. Devastated, because these deaths are, unlike in hospice, not expected. And family members are denied the opportunity to be present with their loved one. 

So it’s grief I’m feeling. It sits in the middle of my chest like a five-pound weight. It’s always present. 

Can you feel it? What are you grieving today? We have so many things to grieve right now.