The Blues is music but grief is a different song.

The province is going into its third lockdown. Minneapolis is in the spotlight as the George Floyd murder trial begins. Traumas are resurrected. Spring seems to have had a false start. 

Everyone is grieving. Even if you don’t know it. Even if you do, it might be deeper than you thought. It’s been a slow steady build, like the pandemic pounds that crept in between me and my waistband. It’s as if winter ran a campaign with the slogan “carbs for the cold”. I voted all the way down the ticket – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Carbs are to humans what down is to ducks, they are necessary in the navigation of winter. 

I expect a little ennui with the onset of frost, and food is a comfort for the blue moods of the grey days. But this winter was different. It was heavier. It was more than a mood, it was a state of being. It was grief.

Grief is often equated with sadness. That is a clumsy and imprecise shortcut. Sadness is fleeting. Grief is a shadow that follows you forever. Sadness can be exorcised with a song. Grief is a keening trapped in your brain. You cannot shortcut grief. You can try and defer but it will not be denied. Grief will be paid its due and the interest is punishing.

I write from experience. If grief was a rock band, I was Penny Lane on a seven year tour I’ll call the Legacy of Loss. The watermark tour dates were the loss of my mother, my house, my father and the dissolution of my relationship. These losses are tangible and recognizable. But they are not insular events, for every loss there is a subset of loss, unidentified and unprocessed. But the weight is carried unwittingly until something brings the burden to light.

The pandemic is full of tangible loss. Many have lost much and continue to suffer. But we’ve collectively lost in a myriad of ways. The intangible and ancillary losses that come in many forms. There are opportunities missed and experiences denied. There is the loss of innocence, the loss of ideas, the loss of beliefs. When something is taken from us violently, there is not only grief but trauma. But healing doesn’t start until the hurts are named. That’s what I’ve learned. Name and claim it, and sometimes you can even let it go. It’s a messy process. It’s not a linear ride. I ricocheted from depression to denial to anger to acceptance. I still bounce between anger and acceptance. It’s a process. I can recognize the shadows. I know to be gentle with myself.

Be gentle with yourself. Recognize you’re grieving. The pandemic has taken a lot. We’ve got a lot to process.