Courage in the Wilderness

 Brené Brown writes: “The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.”

                                    

For me, the wilderness of grief was paired with the wilderness of Yosemite because I went there to hike after my wife died. There, in the solitude of nature, as the noise and rush of city life faded away, I listened to the sounds of nature and heard what grief was trying to tell me.

 

One Year

 How does one observe the first anniversary of a loved one’s death? Hair shirts and gruel, or do we lean back on the porch with a six-pack of beer and nostalgia?

 

Getting through the first year is a major accomplishment, not that we had a choice. We did what we had to do to survive, but it has taken courage, hard work, and the help of others. It’s difficult to believe that an entire year has passed because it seems like they have just died. Yet so much has happened in 12 months that it also seems like a long time ago. It doesn’t matter whether they were a spouse, partner, child, parent, or friend, their death was traumatic, and we have struggled with a host of emotions like anger, frustration, loneliness, and depression that threatened to overwhelm us. Although shock and numbness have buffered much of the pain, we still feel the deep, unrelenting ache of their absence.

 

Living in a Time of Covid

We are anxious and fearful because we don’t know how the coronavirus will affect us or change our world. The normal pattern of our life has been disrupted, and we don’t know for how long. We feel unprepared to deal with something as large as this, and we’re tired, angry, and scared. 

 

We know that people are getting sick from the virus, and some are dying, and they are having to die alone because loved ones aren’t allowed to be with them to offer comfort. We worry about our health care workers who are putting their lives on the line to take care of the sick, working extra shifts until they're exhausted, and doing so without adequate protection.