The Year Everyone Died

I think of 2021 as the year everyone died, even though my beloved friend and honorary sister, Jennifer Simpson died in December of 2020. Jennifer was the Queen of Grief and my guidepost through the world of grief. Since then it has been an avalanche of death and suffering. Yes, I know suffering is universal and part of life. My therapist says I shouldn’t minimize my own suffering just because others are suffering worse. I struggle with this concept, the idea that is okay to feel grief and sadness from my losses even though other people have lost so much more.

Does privilege negate my own suffering?  I suppose not, but it does leave me conflicted over my right to experience my own grief.

Some of the deaths were COVID-19 related; some of them due to the fall out from COVID: the loneliness, isolation, and fear of going to the doctor in a pandemic; others were cancer, car wrecks, and heart failure.

My honorary brother has been in the hospital on a ventilator for close to six-months now and I’m trying to take life day-by-day, which is hard and exhausting when love and worry cloud every moment, but there are still dishes to be washed, gardens to be weeded, and the job that pays my bills clamoring for my attention.

Image by 412designs from Pixabay

The world shrinks when people die. It turns into a very small place where most of my cares are dissolved in the flood of emotions that threaten to drown me.  A clean home has no meaning. Food has no meaning. Nothing else seems to matter but your body, heavy and weighed down with grief. Grief holds me prisoner and now I understand that grief that Jennifer felt.   I hope to work my way out of this grief with therapy, friends, and time, but only time will tell.   I do know sitting here with just my nose and mouth above water that for the reminder of my life I will remain as scarred by this year as if I had run through a plate glass window.