Lockdown Day 34: The restrictions will ease, but our grief might not

A few weeks ago my column focused on the grief we are experiencing at the moment. So many people got in touch to say that it resonated with them, that I thought I would return to it today.  

I have walked a long road with grief.  

Tomorrow, 10 years ago, the love of my life died.

For a precious few years, I shared a life with an exceptional man who created silent spaces for me and gave me soft landings when the world was brutal and tough. I loved him and he loved me. 

Then he died.  

It has been 3 652 days since I found Gerry on the floor of our bedroom and on every one of those 3 652 days, I have for a moment thought of him and ached with longing to see him again .  

Grief breaks something inside you. As Glennon Doyle puts it: "Grief shatters." 

Your skin gets torn off and your DNA gets scrambled. It hurts like hell.  

It takes enormous courage to eventually look at the broken pieces, gently collect them and put them together again. 

If you succeed, the reassembled you, will never be the same as the one before, but is hopefully better and stronger.  

Over the last 3 652 days, I have had to put myself and my life together again.

Today, I’m indeed a very different person from the one I was 10 years ago. I would like to think that I’m a better person. 

I know I am far more sensitive to other people’s pain, but I have also learnt that there are many narcissistic and selfish people in the world, who will hurt and destroy without any thought of the pain they inflict.

This has made me more cautious and careful - perhaps more distrustful. 

Tomorrow the lockdown starts to ease - ever so slightly.

I think that the grief we feel - individually and collectively - might not necessarily ease as well.

In fact it might increase as we grapple with the extent to which our lives have been shattered and how much the DNA of our daily existences has been scrambled.  

We now have to find the courage to have a careful look at all the shattered pieces and try to reassemble our lives and our planet again.   

In many cases that is going to hurt like hell, because grief has a way of  burning away the excesses and the banalities of life.