There are oodles of grief for what has been taken from me, and for what shall not be. But the grief lingers, and stews in the marrows of my bones, not daring to erupt into volcanic tears.
This is no time to cry, I tell myself. No time at all, for I am still surrounded by plenty, and even the excesses of time I have to float in the swamps of ennui is a reflection of that plenty. The fact that I have no need to worry for the next meal, for the survival of this vessel of clay.
And then, while I speak thus with myself, I hear a distant whisper from foreign lands and spiteful hearts seeking to shame: “you bunch of softies”.
So am I soft if I keenly feel what I have had, and had lost?
So am I weak and brittle if my heart mourns for what could be?
It is not that I do not accept my fate, nor that I am unwilling to flow with the circumstances, shape-shifting into a thousand forms beyond the nightmarish horrors that I can imagine.
It is just that I feel the loss, and will you deny me this?
Will you claim I’m not of a stout heart, if my heart is made of flesh and not of cold unblinking stone?
I will feel, and I will own this feeling of grief, of sadness that is hard to be placed which arises from this Covid-19 pandemic. And allow me this moment of grieving, before I rise from one bended knee before the memorial, and set my face grimly to face what lies ahead.
There is a time to grieve; there is a time to be stoic.
And I will embrace both, fully.
‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.'
P.S. Image Source: Danielle MacInnes, Unsplash
P.P.S. Divider Source: @calumam
