Good grief and COVID: dealing with our pain can bring light and relief

“With the recent news about the successes of Pfizer and Moderna, all of humanity has begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Reading these words by Father Harrison Ayre in his Nov. 30 article “Catholics can receive COVID-19 vaccine with a clear conscience“ prompted in me the following reflection:

We are not in Eden anymore.

While my mind can perceive this obvious fact, I realize my heart has not adequately faced and grieved the loss of Eden. I have not adequately accepted and grieved neither the fact that I will experience pain in this life outside of Eden, nor the pains I have actually encountered and continue to encounter each day.

The problem of our (emotional) pain with respect to COVID or any experience of loss and separation for that matter will not be cured by any vaccine or silver bullet. I am not commenting on whether to vaccinate or not. I am reflecting on the problem of pain.

What to do with the problem of pain? We are a humanity that has lost our ability to face our futility and to grieve our losses – everything that hurts us. We have lost our ability to shed tears and to accept that which we are helpless to. Instead, we have learned to dismiss our pain and are more prone to resist it or to cover it up.

We know that at the end of any dark tunnel there is light, but along the way, as we fumble our way about, there is light too that can be had.

When we face the pain of everything from stubbed toes and burnt dinner to broken relationships or the death of a loved one, we can find our sad tears and bring the reality of our helplessness to the foot of the cross – to Jesus and Mary – as a real, accessible means of flooding light onto the present darkness we shall be subjected to until we find ourselves in heaven.

Even now in this vale of tears with the dark tunnel of COVID, God has equipped us each with our own candle to light along the way: the light and brilliance of the emotional process called grieving.

Miraculously, when we grieve we not only find relief and are strengthened with the light of fortitude, but we can perceive paths before us that were hidden in the darkness.

So, as we await the vaccine, the cure, the eradication of whatever it is that afflicts us, may we give ourselves the permission to face and accept our futilities.

May we give ourselves the grace to courageously let down our guards in order to feel our losses and to grieve them.

May our hot, angry tears of resistance and the fight against our limitations give way to sad tears of acknowledgment over all that we are helpless to change. All the while, we can give everything over to Jesus and allow ourselves to be tenderly held by our gentle Mama, open to receiving the miraculous healing and transformation that comes in the practice of grieving.

There is in us something that is raised to new life when we are able to enter into the depths of our sorrows and have Jesus meet us and weep with us there. This Advent, may we all light the candle of our good grief.

In my own darkness, I have been blessed by the following lights. May you be blessed by them too:

• A Brave Lament by Andrew and Christy Bauman. I have seen the short film but haven’t read the book.
• The books and videos of Dr. Gordon Neufeld

Jen Spicer lives in Mission.