reflections on the past year

 After winding my way through a sea of crowd-control belts, directed by guides wearing yellow mesh vests, I finally made it to the parking lot. I held my coat closed against the cold with one hand, while the other gripped the gray cardstock I had just received. I got in my car, took off my mask, and looked down at the card. Reading the words “Covid-19 Vaccination Record” with my name handwritten underneath, my eyes filled with tears. 

I was crying partly because I was so grateful to be able to receive a vaccine, but mostly I was struck with an overwhelming sense of loss. Getting my vaccination felt like the beginning of the end, and with that end in sight, it is natural to look back at how far we have come. For the last year, my life—like all of our lives—was completely changed, and I still find myself mourning all that we have lost.  

 Of course, if you are one of the many Americans who has lost a loved one to Covid, this grief is profound. But for each of us, the loss is deep in a unique way. For me, it's the small losses that are the most painful. Hugging my students, walking across campus and running into friends, eating dinner with my extended family, giving my best friend her birthday gift in person—all of these seem minimal compared to the global scale of deaths, but that does not make their absence any less painful. 

Every one of us could come up with an almost endless list of these losses due to the pandemic. Particularly for students, as the high school and college years are such a temporary time of life, missing a whole year is significant. And I think we should acknowledge the impacts of our losses and give ourselves permission to mourn even the seemingly insignificant ones. Too often, I tend to minimize my feelings, arguing that others have it worse, and of course this may be true. But mourning can exist on many levels, and we all have experienced collective trauma in some sense due to the pandemic. I am a big believer in practicing gratitude and positive thinking, but in my eyes, it is equally important to allow ourselves to confront the weight of our losses as well. It is only by acknowledging loss that we can begin to heal through our grief.  

Recently, I have felt more optimistic about the future than I have in months. Vaccines are going out, cases are going down, promises of a normal Fourth of July lie just ahead of us. But at the same time, this grief persists. And I think that is okay. Even with hope of better days ahead, it is important to still give ourselves grace and mourn our losses.