Permission to Grieve Our Losses

Last week, a friend of mine shared a meme. It depicted an old man in front of a bingo board. Above him was a picture of a weather radar showing twin hurricanes hurtling across the Gulf of Mexico. “Who had double hurricanes on their 2020 Bingo card?” the caption read.

Twenty-twenty has certainly felt like that bingo card. My family and I hunkered down in mid-March as our county went into lockdown. All activities ceased. Our homeschool co-op shut its doors. My daughters’ dance studio moved to online classes. All the extra activities we had planned for the remainder of the spring term, which included classes at our local zoo, botanic garden, and museums, were canceled. I tried to just take a deep breath and accept this “new normal,” telling myself it was temporary, for a season, would be nothing but a memory before we knew it.

But as fall nears and Hobby Lobby starts putting out Christmas decorations, I find myself suddenly besieged with grief. The year is two-thirds over, and here we still are. Now, I have not lost anyone in my family or circle of friends to COVID-19. My husband and I are still working, so the financial impact on our family has been nil. I recognize these facts as the blessings they are, and I’m grateful. Yet I am still hit with a sense of profound loss.

Ultimately, I had to give myself permission to grieve.

The grief I feel is over opportunities lost, memories we didn’t get to make this year.

In a “normal” year, my company, which has been 100 percent offsite since March, gives us summer hours, which means we work a half-day every Friday. For several years now, these Fridays have been key times for memory-making in my family. We call them “Field Trip Fridays,” and fill them with joyful outings and adventures. With things as they are, summer hours this year were canceled because everyone is working from home and benefiting from the company’s commitment to being flexible. It makes sense, but it still feels like a loss.

Throughout the spring and summer, I did my best to combat these losses with as many joys as I could muster. We had extra teatimes. We built lots of LEGOs. I signed up for a couple of subscription services, Kiwi Crate and Annie’s Creative Girls Club, which meant we got fun projects in the mail. We planted a garden and new flower beds. We did our best to make memories at home. My girls struggled with the lack of outings, the lack of face-to-face interactions with friends. As the lockdown ended, we ventured out for short trips to the bookstore and to pick up their favorite takeout. We went to the park even though the playground equipment has been roped off or dismantled. I tried to make the restrictions during these outings easier to swallow by buying them cute masks to wear.

I kept them away from the news reports, the death tolls and worrisome details, but I couldn’t keep away questions. There were some hard ones, too, such as, “Why did God allow the coronavirus to happen, Mom?” It turned out I had to give my daughters permission to grieve, too. I did that by making space for their questions, by listening to and validating their expressions of loss, by being present and making the most of every day as much as I could.

As we geared up for the new school year (since we homeschool, it’s probably the thing that has changed least for us, unlike most families), I crossed my fingers that some of our favorite activities would be reinstated. No such luck. Our co-op is still on hiatus due to restrictions at the facility we rent. The zoo, botanic garden, and museums have reopened, but with some areas closed indefinitely. All extracurricular class offerings are still on hold. The only activity that’s returned to semi-normal is dance, with class sizes cut to 50 percent, temperature checks and hand sanitizing on entry every week, designated “dance spots” marked on the studio floor to keep the kids six feet apart, and teachers in masks. We’ve found our way to some online classes we wouldn’t normally partake in (this one is our favorite), and I’ve determined to use some vacation time so we can have Field Trip Fridays throughout the fall, as the weather cools. We’ll find new ways to make memories within the scope of the current climate as it stands.

But I still feel grief. I still feel loss. My children are growing up so quickly, and it feels unfair that when we look back at 2020, what we will likely remember most clearly is the quarantine vacuum created by COVID-19.

Friends, if you’re with me in this space, I want to say to you: we have permission to grieve. Our losses are valid, whatever they may be, simply because they are ours. We may not have encountered death or crushing financial strain, but we are still allowed to acknowledge whatever feelings we have about what, it seems, will amount to a “lost year” in many ways. Me, I am trying to find a way to sit with my loss and still move forward toward hope and light and wholeness. It doesn’t have to be an either/or; it can be a both/and. If you’re struggling with loss this fall, especially as the days begin to shorten, let me invite you to hold your grief lightly in one hand and seek joy with the other. I believe we can do just that.

Harmony Harkema has loved the written word for as long as she can remember. A former English teacher turned editor, she has spent the past twelve years in the publishing industry. A writer herself in the fringe hours of her working-and-homeschooling mom life, Harmony has a heart for leading and coaching aspiring writers. She is the owner of The Glorious Table and cohost and producer at The Relatable Homeschoolers podcast. Harmony lives in Memphis with her husband and two daughters. You can find her at harmonyharkema.com and on Instagram @harmonyharkema.