Reshaping the Journal
I realized today that I had abbreviated some of the most important sections of Journal of Grief, those related to my father's death.
As I've talked to people about writing this book, the scope or tenor has changed a bit. Originally, I was thinking it would be about my family and the pain of losing both parents in a month, during Covid-19. And all of that is still true.
But several people have talked about the importance of documenting the craziness that was this period in history. Not only about how Covid-19 shut down the world, and even today is still impacting some aspects of life. But also what that really meant.
The pertinent example in our family's life is Dad's death. Normally, when a family member is dying, the family gathers to be with the dying person - and to be with each other. We had had some of this when Mom was dying. Since she took 10 days to die, and John and Michelle were able to get her into hospice at their home, the rest of the siblings had the opportunity to see her before she passed. We didn't get to do the collective grieving part of a "normal" grieving, as we tried to keep the possibly of virus transmission down. Eric and I went one day, and never returned. Richard came a day later, but only stayed for a day. Carol came next, though she stayed for the remainder of the time Mom took to die. This was the best we could do under the circumstances, but it did allow each of us to "say goodbye". When I left that day, I knew I would never see my mother again.
But Covid-19 impacted us much more profoundly when it came to our father. First, we couldn't go see him when we knew he was dying. The facility was on lockdown because of Covid-19. Second, even if the facility hadn't been locked down, it would have been not recommended for us to visit because Dad had Covid-19, and there were no vaccines yet. We could have - I suppose - found PPE and gone to see him, but it would have been very difficult. Third, because we couldn't visit, we couldn't hold his hand as he died, like Carol did with Mom. Fourth, we couldn't - as we couldn't with Mom - be together in our grief. Except over Zoom, which is just not the same.
In my first draft, I had written about all of that in a single paragraph, much like the paragraph above. But that isn't enough to truly describe the impact that Covid-19 had on our family during this time. So, today, I expanded that paragraph into a chapter, to fully describe how terrible it was to not be able to visit, to not be able to mourn together, and to not be able to memorialize our parents in the usual ways.
I also added some chapters on other ways Covid-19 disrupted our lives, to be sure to cover the recommendations by my friends that Journal of Grief include a reckoning of all the ways Covid-19 affected us all.
As I've talked to people about writing this book, the scope or tenor has changed a bit. Originally, I was thinking it would be about my family and the pain of losing both parents in a month, during Covid-19. And all of that is still true.
But several people have talked about the importance of documenting the craziness that was this period in history. Not only about how Covid-19 shut down the world, and even today is still impacting some aspects of life. But also what that really meant.
The pertinent example in our family's life is Dad's death. Normally, when a family member is dying, the family gathers to be with the dying person - and to be with each other. We had had some of this when Mom was dying. Since she took 10 days to die, and John and Michelle were able to get her into hospice at their home, the rest of the siblings had the opportunity to see her before she passed. We didn't get to do the collective grieving part of a "normal" grieving, as we tried to keep the possibly of virus transmission down. Eric and I went one day, and never returned. Richard came a day later, but only stayed for a day. Carol came next, though she stayed for the remainder of the time Mom took to die. This was the best we could do under the circumstances, but it did allow each of us to "say goodbye". When I left that day, I knew I would never see my mother again.
But Covid-19 impacted us much more profoundly when it came to our father. First, we couldn't go see him when we knew he was dying. The facility was on lockdown because of Covid-19. Second, even if the facility hadn't been locked down, it would have been not recommended for us to visit because Dad had Covid-19, and there were no vaccines yet. We could have - I suppose - found PPE and gone to see him, but it would have been very difficult. Third, because we couldn't visit, we couldn't hold his hand as he died, like Carol did with Mom. Fourth, we couldn't - as we couldn't with Mom - be together in our grief. Except over Zoom, which is just not the same.
In my first draft, I had written about all of that in a single paragraph, much like the paragraph above. But that isn't enough to truly describe the impact that Covid-19 had on our family during this time. So, today, I expanded that paragraph into a chapter, to fully describe how terrible it was to not be able to visit, to not be able to mourn together, and to not be able to memorialize our parents in the usual ways.
I also added some chapters on other ways Covid-19 disrupted our lives, to be sure to cover the recommendations by my friends that Journal of Grief include a reckoning of all the ways Covid-19 affected us all.
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