The Personal, the Community, the Collective
Months ago, I thought COVID-19 was easier than infertility in the sense that everyone was going through it. There was no sense of otherness; no isolation from everyday experiences or navigation of triggers from an otherwise that you really really wanted.
The pandemic is clearly a lot more deadly than infertility and steeped in inequalities, but the coronavirus affects everyone. Therefore, everyone understands. We all know the people around us are impacted, too.
I take that thought back.
I fear I’m hitting a grief saturation as I process upsetting news after upsetting news. People’s parents die from COVID-19. I have seen announcement after announcement of major health issues. Job loss. There is no place to catch your breath. It is like walking down an unending receiving line of individuals, abiding with grief, acknowledging each loss.
When grief happens on the personal level, there are the people in the center of the grief, surrounded by people who are leaning in to abide and need support from people who are not grieving. The rings of the circle ripple outward, feeling gentler the farther you get from the center.
When grief happens on the community level, a large group of people are left reeling, but the same formation happens again: center, inner rings, outer rings—just on a larger scale. A community is in grief, and it is surrounded by a state or by a country or by the world.
But what do we do when grief is happening at the collective level? When the number of the people in the center outnumber perhaps the number of people available for the inner and outer rings? What do we do with grief that large?
5 comments
Yeah. I don’t even really feel like I can vent to most of my friends because they are all dealing with the same situation and challenges as me, or different-but-equally-awful ones, or worse. (Example: my BFF is a RN who works in a hospital, sometimes caring for Covid patients, and since March 2020 has not seen her parents, lost her brother unexpectedly through violence, and has a younger sister who has been going through chemotherapy in another state.)
So in addition to being surrounded daily by sad news, I feel like sympathy is hard to find. I didn’t feel like that while dealing with infertility, as I had people in my life who had gone through similar situations and/or were open to listening and supporting me.
This is so true. And I feel like we have fewer avenues to support our friends apart from sending meals or gift cards since we can’t sit together in person to comfort them.
As I wrote this week, I’m on the outside of the pandemic circle. I’m open to anyone who wants to vent, and I wish I could send support to you all. I don’t know how to help, really. So I send my love. And hugs.
As someone who is high risk, I absolutely feel like an outsider. I see friends and neighbors going on vacation, eating in restaurants, having gatherings inside their homes, while I watch them pretending there is no pandemic and not giving two hoots that their behavior could impact my life. I was told I was “lucky” to need hydroxychloroquine while at the same time I could not get it filled because irresponsible government numpties proclaimed that it saved lives. My life being saved was never even considered. The comments sections are full of neo-Darwinists who have decided we weaklings with health conditions are an easy sacrifice to make so they do not have to change their habits. I am really hating humanity now.
I don’t think it’s as collective a suffering as you make it out to be. To some extent, yes. And it was (in the Northeast at least) from March – May last year. But now there are so many people who are not following CDC/state/local recommendations and are indirectly making the whole situation worse for everyone. I hear all around me: “I’m tired of this and I deserve a break …” “Just my family going to XX won’t hurt anyone …”. I even know an ER doctor (who was terrified in March, calmer in August, and has now been on sabbatical for 2 months) who is flying to St. Thomas with her husband and kids for February break. “It’s only one 3.5 hour direct flight and I need the sunshine! I’ll keep my kid out of school for a day after we get back to have her tested, which is all that we are required to do.” Really?!!?