My Brother...the Virus...and all our Griefs

One year ago yesterday my brother died. My baby brother—79 years old. I have on my desk two pictures of him. In one photo his back is to me, he is staring at the ocean which he loved. The other picture in the corner is Gene when he was vital and very much alive. Just almost a year ago he did income tax for about 500 people. He was sick when he did this. Did not feel good and had lost a lot of weight. Getting through each day was hard. Yet he left his fingerprints over 500 IRS forms. Weeks later he put away his pen, closed down his computer went to the hospital and died just one year ago.

Someone has said that losing a brother or sister is largely ignored by most people. But not the grievers. Brothers or sisters. Just knowing I can’t pick up the phone and call him is a great sadness.  And saying goodbye takes a long time. And a year is not long enough for the healing to work its way out.

But if his death had occurred this year—this May. My mourning and all those who loved him would be far different today. There would no goodbyes for family members surrounding him as he slipped away into the mystery. The coronavirus changed it all. We couldn’t even go into the hospital. Many, many could even see their loved ones in Hospice. This virus has left too much unfinished business. There would have been a small grave service for just a sprinkling of family. There would have been no hugs or tears together or sharing “I remember…” stories. So after the funeral we would once again move our separate ways. Wearing masks—or should. Standing six feet away from others—even those we love the most. This loss would be different. 

photo courtesy of www.vperemen.com

Just ask those 5.7 million who have contracted this virus around the globe. Or their loved ones. 357,254 of these did not recover. We have lost 101,217 in our country. We mourn their passing whether we know them or not.  

 I remember the first time I visited the 9/11 Memorial. One room was filled with pictures of so many lost that terrible day in New York. I did not know a single one of them personally—yet they all had names and dreams and family members and children and parents and friends. I was overwhelmed to see all those faces caught in that 9/11 net that came from all over the world to our country.

And so as I ponder our over 101,000 dead I have the same feeling I had that day in New York. I knew not a single one of these that had died personally. Yet like 9/11 they were somebody’s child or mate or loved one or friend or neighbor or companion at work. That day I thought of all the firefighters that climbed shaking stairs to save somebody but never came back. And today I think of all the brave soldiers—doctors, nurses, aides —scientists and gravediggers who have done what

photo by Andrew Dallos / flikr

needed to be done. They did what they could and yet so many were lost.

This virus has changed it all. Working at home for months—if we were lucky to have a job. All those living hand to mouth whose jobs are gone and will not come back. All those kids and their parents hoping the bus will come and bring food they could not afford to buy. And all those brave ones in grocery or pharmacy stores that work at great risk.

But I weep over all those who, night after night, are afraid that they will be evicted and all their meagre possession dragged out to some street. And the jobless—millions of people—some working two-three jobs and now their work has vanished. What are they to do?

What are we to do? Not only with the personal losses from other times that quietly come back yet again as if these we lost had just left us. And what are we to do with all those on TV Hour after hour and day after day reminding us that we not only have lost but we keep losing. 

After 9/11 for a brief time we came together, a band of brothers and sisters knowing we were in this together. Knowing that somehow we would make it through. And we did—for better or for worse.

But this terrible loss that touches everything and everybody has driven us apart. Spitting on Chinese that walk our streets. Social media run amuck with the ugliest and the craziest of rants. Death threats abound.The Tweeters charging some of the best and brightest of us all with murder or hatred so deep it is scary. Some carrying AK47’s into Courthouses and malls and trying in their own sad way to defend or hold back or just protect their little turfs. This loss has divided us even further than we were. Of course some grief works its way out as anger and rage. Name-calling and distrust of one another can be found in almost any town or county. This strange distrust of those who know something. Fake everything.  Where we are going and where will we wind up?  

I think of those cities in Europe that we have visited. They lost almost everything in the Second World War. Ruins everywhere. Death piled up on top of death. Economy in disarray. Yet they carted away the rubble, they rebuilt and they moved on even though they would carry their scars as long as they lived.

Grief is a scar. We are all the walking wounded whether we had buried anyone or not. Willy Nelson sang, in his plaintive way, “It’s not what you get over—it’s what you go through.”

And we must slosh through this. We must be kind, hard as that may be some days. We must sit in stillness and wipe away tears not knowing where they come from. Yes, it all seems like utter helplessness. But it isn’t. 

We will get through this with all its scary complications. And we will be different. I tell my grief groups that losing someone we love is like an amputation. That’s the way I feel about my brother who died a year ago.  And this is really how we all feel—amputated from so much and so many.

The whatever is out there is not over. It may come raging back—we hope not. But whatever happens we must do what we can for ourselves, for all those we love—and for the nation and the world itself.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com