Notes on Grief: Your ‘New Normal’ is Not Mine, Yet
By: Sara Kenney
Tags: Grief, Dads, Mental Health, Pandemic, Cancer

When a loved one is dying, you want them to be as comfortable as possible. You want them to be pain-free, of course, but also to have the experiences in their final year of life that they deserved. The oft-posed question of: “What would you do if you had one year to live?” became somewhat of a moot one, since my dad’s seizures prevented him from driving legally, and besides, there was no real safe place to go or be aside from his home which was somewhat cloistered in the rural landscape of Vermont.

It is infuriating to me that my dad never got to have the last year on earth that he wanted. But just about equally infuriating to me is that the outbreak of the pandemic was, at one point, able to be mitigated in the United States. And as it so happened, it was most definitely not.

I do not know how to express myself more clearly than I am about to here, but to see and hear of peers gathering in crowded basements or with folks outside of their households, countless numbers of people railing against face coverings and masks, and government officials holding unsafe rallies, meetings, and, eventually, violent riots in Capitol buildings, was akin, in my eyes, to dancing on the graves of the dead, those who were dying, and those living and working in high-risk situations.

While I heard of people frequenting crowded amusement parks or taking trips to vacation destinations by plane because they were bored and “sick of being inside,” my father endured depressive episodes where he wondered if he should just get rid of all of his clothes because he was “just going to die anyway.”

While I scrolled on Instagram to see the same people, over and over and over again, meeting in groups of fifteen or more people in restaurants with at least fifty other people to eat an overpriced bistro burger in a group, my highly immunosuppressed dad was carefully dodging maskless people who were following the arrows the wrong way in the grocery store.

And while people I went to high school with, ones taking exotic Florida vacations and clubbing away, were writing on Thanksgiving Day on Facebook: “DON’T LISTEN TO THESE ‘RULES,’ BE FREE,” my sister and I, who had not seen each other for Thanksgiving or Christmas, were each quarantining for three weeks, getting multiple Covid tests, and driving 2000 miles from Boston, to Washington D.C., to Vermont, then back to Washington D.C. and Boston in two January weekends together, making only one stop at a pre-determined safe restroom, to not only hug our father, but also to try to communicate with him while wearing two masks indoors, wondering if that was the last time we would ever see him. It was.

The most major memory so many people will have of this pandemic is the loss of human life, and how we seemed to have readjusted our value of human life by truly not valuing it at all. Healthcare workers are struggling with post-traumatic stress as Covid patients are dying globally by the thousands, and here, in the United States, so many of us have had to say goodbye to our loved ones through a screen.

This may sound petty — and I don’t intend it for it to be just petty — but if you have not gone through crushing loss this year, if you have not had to say goodbye to loved ones remotely or through a screen, or even missed that opportunity like I did, then you do not get to have say in my personal boundaries or my rituals. They are, practically, one of the only pieces of normalcy right now keeping me afloat as I process losing one of the dearest people to me in my life. If you have not known the stress of potentially killing somebody by being near them, or if you have considered it, and still had the audacity to jet to a place where masks are optional because you are simply bored and Pandemic Fatigued (believe me, we all are), I will not judge your risk calculus as it relates to yourself and your comfort level, but just know your inability to practice community care speaks louder than any words can. And everybody who has lost someone this year can hear you even if you don’t utter a word.

To hear, “I’m sorry for your loss” from those who gathered unnecessarily and in massive groups is sincerely not welcome right now.

To receive judgment from friends who want me to come over right away or accept and embrace the sudden change of seeing people with open arms immediately, is not welcome right now. To have my and to see others’ boundaries crossed, repeatedly, when we have communicated them, stings beyond compare. I see you.

The hardest part, friends and I have discussed at this time, is understanding that we all have different levels of risk calculus. Essential workers and those who work in-person because there is not a choice to work remotely (which is true for myself) all have different levels of risk that they are willing to accept, as do people who work from home. When appropriate, and when safe, I do my best to never judge someone’s actions, especially if they are considered safe by current standards. If needs are communicated on both sides, I strive to act both reasonably and responsibly. This has been a less-than-ideal time for everyone.

But in this particular case of being suddenly open to a New New Normal, I feel as though I am being asked — in a large, sweeping way by societal pressure, and, well, people I know — to let go of a tension that I am not ready to surrender. That tension is the survival instinct I mentioned before, the one that reminds me that every action I take is done in service and defense of my father’s wellbeing. For example, I feel as though my vaccination, by many I know, has been regarded like a Countdown to Normalcy, or Freedom, or when we can finally see people, and when people can finally see me, again. And that is fine for them. I harbor no judgment.

But on the other hand, for me, my vaccine was a tool, it was my ticket to making sure I didn’t kill my father if I ever got to see him before he died in hospice. I have no urge to celebrate, nor do I have champagne to pop, because, as it stands, my father is no longer here, and the world is still locked in the jaws of a pandemic that it has not yet overcome. While I am glad to have contributed to decreasing community spread of the virus, I have nothing to cheer for, and will not for a very long time.

My gestures and actions at this time have been pathways to him, and following his death, I feel like a high-speed train chugging down the tracks that has been suddenly asked to stop and re-route. Cargo is flying everywhere, passengers are knocking into one another, maybe three people inside the train have concussions and need to seek medical attention. Moreover, the train’s internal engine feels utterly burnt out. The train will have to be stopped for a while as ambulances arrive, and so the maintenance crew can figure out just what is going on inside. They wonder: how will the train run again? How will it run on this new route? And how soon will it be up and running again? My best advice right now, to all passengers, is to catch another train, at least for now.

As I process the trauma of the past year, try to live — slowly but surely — without my rituals, and make peace with my grief, I know I am going to need a serious amount of time. For those who were reckless at this time while so many of us were experiencing unprecedented loss, you will not expect a warm welcome from me. Or at least not right now. I don’t know how to be in the same room as you, or spend time around you, or even pretend to be polite to you. The subtext of this year doesn’t easily go away, and I don’t want it to. That does not have to be okay with you, or those close to you, and I accept that. For those who reached out, who sent love, who made sacrifices for me: I’ll never forget that.

My dad was my very best friend. I have often called him my adult mirror. I strived, always, to be his mini-me. He was a person who knew me inside and out, and more specifically, knew what it was like to bottle up anger and let it sit until it spewed out into a hideous explosion, like Mentos in Coca Cola. If he were here, he’d examine my scattered Mentos, spilled Coke, and probably laugh in recognition. He would also probably read this and suggest that it was too long and could be cut down significantly, and I would say he would be one to talk.

I recognize that this period of Mentos and Coke, run-down trains, and rules and rituals is a highly specific kind of grief for a very specific period. But I hope, with work, and with time, my train will run again on a brand-new route. Perhaps on Mentos. In Coca Cola. And maybe, too, with a new ritual, at a new pace, in a new world, one I wish my dad could have seen.