Collective Grief & How We All Need Each Other More Than Ever

It is mid-December 2021 and we are closing in on Year 2 of the global phenomenon called the COVID-19 Pandemic. Whether you realize it or not, we are in the middle of a collective grief process.

Collective grief occurs when a community, city, nation, or world experience grief after an extreme change or loss. Some examples of this type of grief – world wars, the flu pandemics of the early 1900s, natural disasters, 9/11, racial and political unrest and now COVID-19. Unlike other types of loss, the ones incurred from COVID continue to mount and they go beyond deaths. Jobs, educational processes, personal freedoms, types of entertainment, and our everyday expectation of normalcy are all losses we’ve experienced from this pandemic.

Life has changed for all of us. And the most uncomfortable part of it this change is we don’t know when or even if the pandemic will end. Perhaps being in a pandemic state is our new normal. Health experts say this may be our way of life from now on (vaccinations, mask wearing, social distancing, etc.).

While you may not have been directly impacted by COVID, you have been impacted indirectly. Everything, at one point or another, was shut down and in some parts of the world, remain so. Many businesses closed and will never return. How we buy, eat, learn, entertain, work, travel – all of it – has been impacted. We have all lost something. And with an economic crisis looming (hello, inflation and student debt crisis!), we stand to lose even more.  

For that very reason, we need each other more now than ever.  

Some days, I feel I am alone in believing this. Why? Because we seem more divided than ever. Getting a vaccine? You’re cancelled. Not getting a vaccine? You’re cancelled. Wearing a mask? Cancelled. Not wearing a mask? Cancelled.

Wanting to work from home? Cancelled. Not wanting to work from home? Cancelled. 

You get my point. Civil discourse seems to have died. But I digress. I don’t want to make this a political rant, which it could very easily become. 

My point is we have all lost someone or something in this and we need to show some compassion for others because they’ve lost something too. We have before us a golden opportunity to share in our sufferings and display our humanity in a way that perhaps it hasn’t been shown before. We help each other not only because we may need help someday ourselves, but it’s the right thing to do. This is our kumbaya moment.

I still hope for a world full of peace. Call me a Pollyanna if you’d like. We need more of us around, frankly. Maybe the pandemic can help us get there.

Write & Rise, my friends.