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The troll makes a point worth discussing. This pandemic is not a personal loss. It's a national one. We've lost jobs, loved ones, living spaces, graduations, celebrations, rituals, relationships, ways of life.
Shared mourning is what societies do to heal after great trauma. https://twitter.com/Cat_in_a_Bowl/status/1265422749725491216
Shared mourning is what societies do to heal after great trauma. https://twitter.com/Cat_in_a_Bowl/status/1265422749725491216
A key element of "getting on with life" after tragedy isn't moving linearly or sweeping emotions under the rug. It's learning to weather the storm by looking to places or people who can be strong, compassionate, helpful, or empathetic when you cannot. Shared mourning does this.
It's also hard to move on when life as you knew it has been upended. Maybe you survived Covid-19, but now you have a tracheotomy scar. Perhaps your lungs or heart don't function the same as before. You may have graduated, but what is this strange new world you're entering?
Shared mourning is the collective expression of emotion beyond reason. It's the voice of the gaping, jagged wound left where our tenuous understanding of the way of the world used to reside. We need shared mourning during global tragedy because we are, above all else, humans.
We will move on, because we must. Adapt or die has been hardwired into our very beings for millennia. We cannot move on as whole beings until recognize and honor what we have lost, until we have the strength to see where we need help. We need to sit with the pain & uncertainty.
