‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle’ – attributed, variously, to Socrates or Plato
‘When Jesus saw the crowd, he was filled with compassion’ – Matthew 14:14
All week long I felt it coming. I had no idea what ‘it’ was. Not because I had no way of knowing, but because my mind blocked it. But I felt it: a dark, looming remembrance waiting to catch me unawares and take me down. I went to bed last night in one of those funks that you can’t explain but makes the world feel like a hopeless, compassionless place. Somehow, I fell asleep, and this morning, I woke to the realization of what ‘it’ was.
Today is Friday. One year ago, four months after losing my Mom to cancer, my family and I learned that my Dad had tested positive for Covid. Less than three days later, in the early hours of Monday morning, he was gone too.
I wrote a tribute to my Dad that week. It was the only way to process the loss. We could not have a funeral. A short time later, in the midst of hissy fits over mask-wearing, the insanity of a ‘plandemic’ conspiracy theory, and comments about how Covid was no big deal because old people died all the time anyway, I penned and posted The Great Divide, wherein I noted that the pandemic was bound to produce two different groups of people in our society: those who lost loved ones to Covid and those who did not. The latter group, I feared, would simply never understand what the former was going through.
A year later, with nearly 570,000 deaths in the United States alone that former group is millions strong. I am thankful for the emergence of a third group, people who have not lost loved ones, but whose compassionate hearts have responded with sensitivity, grace, and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the vulnerable. If you belong to that group, I thank you.
But I have to be honest. Most days, I don’t feel thankful. Most days, and maybe especially this week, as I wrestle with my loss and watch a world that is mostly just excited to move on, I feel only sadness and pain. Most days, I feel as if most people don’t and never will understand. If I am really being honest, most days, I feel as if most people don’t and never will care.
The fact that some will be mad at me for being honest about my feelings only proves my point. Am I not allowed to grieve? Must those of us who have lost loved ones keep to ourselves and remain quiet? Must we suffer silently so as not to ruin anyone else’s good time?
A couple of weeks ago, I urged the people in the church I serve to be kind to one another as we (hopefully) emerge from the pandemic. Many are struggling, for all sorts of reasons, not just the loss of loved ones. Many have suffered loss. And for many, those losses have been far greater than the ‘loss of freedom’ due to the restrictions designed to save lives, or the inability to get their hair done at the salon, or having to forego a weekly gathering at the local watering hole. Many are emerging with emotional, psychological, and spiritual scars. And many have had to endure the loss of people they love, whether to Covid or something else, while the world around them hasn’t seemed to care one bit.
So today, I urge again that people be kind. As you make decisions and interact with people in the coming weeks and months, let mercy lead you. Be sensitive and compassionate in your encounters with others, especially with those who have suffered loss. Kindness is what the folks on the dark side of the Great Divide need right now.
One more thing. If you haven’t done so already, please, get vaccinated. Maybe you think it won’t make much difference for you, but for the vulnerable, like my Dad was in late April of 2020, it could mean the difference between life and death.
And for those of us who grieve, your demonstration of compassion will mean the world.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent
Photo from a memorial to Covid victims in Belmar, NJ, taken by my sister Kate MacDonald.
