The
outlook of the world that we live in today has never felt this different.
Loneliness, sickness, grief. Well, the telltale signs started showing last year
but not many accurately predicted it would be this gloomy. We sat, we hoped, we
prayed. For a moment it looked like the heavens had smiled at our beautiful
continent. But it didn’t take long before the dark clouds started simmering.
It
is hard to think of a more difficult time in one’s lifetime than a time of
grief, a moment of personal loss and bereavement. When the loss of a dear one
is confirmed, when the day you didn’t expect to come sooner finally stares in
your face, or when the angel of death rears its ugly head at your door. No
matter how prepared you are, it is this moment in life that you will never
fully prepare for. Death with all its sting was never meant to be something we
wake up to every day. But for several days now, ambulances and hearses have become
a common sight. Funeral homes and coffin makers are in big business but they have
been overwhelmed lately. It no longer feels like what they set out to do and
you have got to feel for them. They are human too!
In
my moments of deep thought and continuous reflection, I have never stopped pondering
the deep extent of our suffering as people. I am aware of the near
impossibility of trying to fully comprehend any situation that you are not
directly faced with. But many times, as you watch from a distance, you can see
the plight of others and feel for them. You can sympathize with a story that you
watch on the evening bulletin without even knowing those involved. We don’t
need many ways to distinguish us from animals, that there is one of them; the ability
to feel for each other as human beings.
My
mother once told me a story of a woman, who, many years ago had lost her three
children in a single day; in a space of minutes if you would like. As they
traveled to one of the many places they went together, they were involved in a
motor accident, and not one of them survived. She was widowed not long after
that. Early last year, before the world was engulfed by the debilitating
effects of a strange virus, she celebrated her 95th birthday. Her
grandchildren, who she brought up, had conspired to throw her a party and like
a newlywed bride, she basked in the glory of the moment. As I sat in among her
guests, I didn't stop asking my inner self how she had managed to go through
all those years after her tragedy. How did she cope? Was there a point of ever
getting over it? As a believer, did she ever question why God had let that
happen to her? Did she curse why she came into this world? I listened to her
speak and her voice was firm, her resolve and belief in the Lord unwavering.
She told us a bit about her personal story, her struggles to raise her
grandchildren, and the loss of her husband and children. This was many, many
years ago but you could still feel the sadness; that tinge of grief could still
be felt. President Bush once said, even grief recedes with time and grace. But
how long this takes will always be a personal story. Why did I remember this
old woman?
The
devastating effects of Covid-19 got me remembering about that old woman. Families
are being wiped out in a matter of days now. One member of the household picks
up the virus and in a short while everyone is infected. Panic, prayer, and the
fight to make it through are what follow. Even when most of those who get
infected make a quick turn around and recover, the fatalities have been unusually
high. Death, in the past few days, has taken a rare and more painful twist. The
path for those grieving seems lonelier because the strictness of the lockdown measures
has restricted burials to only a handful. We can’t do anything about that
because many are being saved from losing their lives. But the physical absence
of friends and relatives at your most trying times may rank as the cruelest
blow that this pandemic has dealt us. We are already struggling with what to
say to them and presence would have provided a bit of comfort but that too is
not present. If you notice, one of the most difficult thing during a time of
bereavement is what to say to that on grieving. You can’t claim that you
understand what they are going through because you never will. Never! Loss of
dear ones hits us differently and with this, there is no shared experience. It
is a personal portion that is administered individually. You experience the pain
up-close and those around you will only try to make the load lighter. But is
there a way we could handle grief? I don’t think there is a formula!
A
Judge in one of the most high-profile cases in our country's judicial history
famously said that there is no standard of expressing grief, some people break
down in grief while others stand up in grief. Maybe for context, the man on the
stand at that time was being accused of the most heinous crime a man can commit
against their family; murdering his wife. To build their case, part of the
evidence that had been adduced by the Prosecutor was to show that at no point
during his wife’s funeral was he seen crying! Yes, he didn't cry at the sight
of his wife's coffin, he didn't drop a tear as he eulogized her, throughout, he
didn’t shed a tear. But do we all have to cry to prove that we are grieving?
Over the years I have come to discover that you can have everyone in the room
welling up and not a single one of them even means it. But that is not to take
anything away from those that cry as a way of expressing their grief. It is
part of how they let it out. Freud once wrote that ‘unexpressed emotions will
never die. They are buried alive and will come forth in uglier ways.’
The
reminder for us today is that we don’t need to first see teary eyes for us to
be kind. The present times, more than ever before, call for empathy, affection
and compassion towards our neighbors, strangers, kith, and kin or anyone that
you chance across.
