The most thoughtful thing you can do for someone who is grieving is to allow them to bear witness; to listen to their stories and memories about that person. The same is true for anything we have lost, not just the people.There is so much to bear witness to this year. Between the virus ravaging the world, the 22 million people filing for unemployment in a single month, the healthcare workers on the front lines without proper supplies, the delivery people, the postal workers, the garbage collectors, the caregivers; the continuous ineptitude of the federal government, and the incredible loss of life, there is so much to bear witness to.
I’ve read that our teenagers may never fully recover from this lost spring and summer. That they will carry the isolation, anxiety and loss with them well into their adulthood, whether they have lost a loved one or not. This is a critical time in adolescent development, where their support systems are primarily their peers. During the pandemic, the only way they can interact with their peers is virtually and that is not sufficient for the interaction they need. As always, I wonder how the kids who do not have internet access are able to “attend” classes, “see” their friends or connect with anyone. I wonder how the kids who are in abusive or neglectful situations will be able to manage. They don’t have the sanctuary of libraries to go to in order to access the internet or read to their hearts’ content. And to this, too, we bear witness.
Our entire society has gone sideways; in fact, it had been going sideways for some time now, we were just ignoring it until the pandemic made us all stop and take notice. We ignored the racial, social and economic disparities unless they directly affected us. We poked fun at the ridiculous spectacle that has hollowed out every possible governmental support structure designed specifically to give safety to a vulnerable American public until it was apparent that we need those structures to survive as a society. And now, as the things we ignored, made fun of or took for granted are failing, we must bear witness.
The way back will be slow. But we must be systematic in our approach, not just to surviving this deadly pandemic, but to rebuilding the very structure of our society. And we’re a long way from this being over, if it ever will be. In Our Pandemic Summer, Ed Yong writes:
“The pandemic is not a hurricane or a wildfire. It is not comparable to Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Such disasters are confined in time and space. The SARS-CoV-2 virus will linger through the year and across the world. “Everyone wants to know when this will end,” said Devi Sridhar, a public-health expert at the University of Edinburgh. “That’s not the right question. The right question is: How do we continue?””
Indeed: How do we continue? I am encouraged that my governor and his peers in adjoining states are committed to following the science and heeding the advice of actual health experts. I am grateful that my employer advocated for remote working long before the crisis. We will continue, albeit much differently than before.
And give all that we’ve lost the gift of bearing witness.