An Offering of Tears

 

Today marks one year since my mother passed away. On the cusp of a new day, as the second hand ticked past midnight, she was gone. Her sudden passing from the Coronavirus last April and the subsequent stories of loss I encountered from countless people over these past months are the inspiration behind this space. There were so many experiencing the common movement of grief in wholly uncommon times. 

While grief can be a treacherous road at any given time, the circumstances surrounding us these past twelve months, these 525 thousand 600 minutes, have been anything but ordinary.

Our ability to move through the motions of mourning were fractured. Gathering virtually or not at all. Limited funerals or delayed memorials. 

So many of us said goodbye over the phone or on a screen - if at all. 

So many of us were robbed of those final moments to hold onto the sacredness of the person slipping away.

So many of us suffered under the political squabbling that said our loved ones were "just the elderly or vulnerable."

So many of us who were suffocating under the pressure of adapting to a new rhythm of life that did not afford us space to feel our feelings, to sit in our grief, to just be.

Here we are a year later, still wanting to tell the stories - the stories of our pain, but also the stories of the life and joy and hope we shared with those we lost.

Whether you have lost someone in the past year, or decades ago, know that your stories have a place here. We gather to mourn, to remember, to offer our tears as a collective prayer of lament rooted in the hope of something more to come - a hope in the promise that this is not all there is and we shall see our loved ones again. And for those of us who never got to say goodbye, that we might embrace one another in an eternal hello again one day.

You are not alone, and your grief is not invisible. Let us pray together and remember together.