Loss in the ‘best of times’ is hard enough to bear,
Loss in the ‘worst of times’ is a beast of an entirely different kind.
Stripped of the usual rituals and ceremony,
The rites of passage that facilitate our farewells,
The homes not visited, the bells not rung, the shiva not sat, the songs unsung, __________________ (you fill in the blank)
Separated by distance and statistical probabilities,
Less than 10, now no more than 6,
Constrained by the strength of your online connectivity,
Confined by your capability to navigate the new normal,
Already striving for a sense of yourself,
With all your usual markers erased,
Now along comes loss…
So in you wade,
Or, maybe you don’t,
Maybe you remain detached on the shore,
Knowing your ability to tread water will not keep you afloat,
Not during these ‘worst’ of times,
If it was the ‘best’ of times,
You might dip your toe in,
Slowly descending into the cold sea of grief,
But not now, not yet, not during this time,
A time which as yet seems to have no end,
And by the time it ends what will remain?
Who will remain?
What and who will we be?
Loss in the ‘best of times’ is hard enough to bear,
Loss in the ‘worst of times’ is a beast of an entirely different kind.
~ J Whyne, April 2020