The Grief Year
2024 was my year of grieving. In March, after ten years of struggling with one form of cancer after another, my sweet father passed away as I held his hand. My mother, heartbroken, descended further into dementia, losing not only her memory but her ability to locate her place in the world without her partner of sixty-six years by her side. She died suddenly on the last day of September, alone. I grieve them both.
Now it seems I must grieve my country too, or at least the loss of things I value–now threatened by a return to a regressive regime: reproductive rights, the environment, social justice, equal rights and human rights, peace, and more. Education as we know it may face the chopping block. Writing too, may be at risk.
I search grief therapy for lessons to help cope with this enormous loss, but I’m not sure these grievings are equivalent. I felt relief that suffering had ended with my parents. Instead, for my country, suffering will undoubtedly increase. How can healing occur when the struggle isn’t over but will continue, perhaps for lifetimes?
Maybe these differences mean that this election, this takeover, doesn’t constitute a death, but only a wounding, vast as it is. We can grieve the loss of what we had, but we can also work toward another chance to articulate how the world can be a better place for all. It may sound naïve, but what other choice do we have except to give up?
Grief therapy does hold one piece of advice for moving forward after this election: feel what you feel. Don’t repress it. Let yourself face the emotions within you, however messy or painful they may be. The so-called “stages of grief” do not progress neatly from one to another but rather occur in any order or may even take place all at once.
I wonder how much more grieving I can take, but I’m not alone living with loss. These terrible feelings will come and go as we work toward our future. We will laugh again, and cry, as we raise our voices in anger and in love.
KAYANN SHORT is the author of A Bushel’s Worth: An EcoBiography. She lives on a farm in Longmont, Colorado.
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To "raising our voices in anger AND in love"! History helps me see the pendulum continues it's arc from election to election, decade to decade, century to century...death to birth. The spirit of justice lives and empowers me as do the spirits of our children, parents and ancesters. I believe every life and every seed affects the whole. So I'll keep on loving and planting for today and the days to come.
Thank you Kayann for your wise reflections and for helping me to do the same.
Yes! Thank you for sharing your deeply personal pain, Kayann. After the night comes morning! Sunrise after the darkness! We will do this together and be stronger after four more years. Let’s see our grief as a wake-up call and learn from our past. Forward together!