“A full year of lockdown has passed and more than one hundred and twenty six thousand people in the UK are recorded as having lost their lives to Covid 19. We grieve every person; we mourn for all the joy and wisdom, warmth and love that has left our world with their deaths.

A little more than a year ago our world was upended with news of the coronavirus, our relationships and our lives destabilised as fear crept into our waking moments and anxiety coloured our dreams. We are grieving for the world we knew; for the easy handshakes and hugs; for the freedom to go wherever we needed to, unafraid and straightforwardly.

We have learned in this past year about our own mortality, about how lightly life is worn and how easily it can fall from us. Some of us have experienced great illness and recovered, some of us are continuing to suffer; some of us have watched a loved one suffer without being able to be close to them, or are living with the knowledge that they died alone, comforted not by their family or friends, but by caring strangers.

As we remember those whose lives were cruelly cut short by this virus, our feelings flow and change, overcome and recede. We are cut off from the comforts of being with each other,  from the squeezing of hands and the sharing of glances, from the rituals of saying a proper goodbye. 

But while each of us may mourn alone, we also share our grief. The lonely path we are walking is being trodden by so many others.  Walking alongside us, even if we do not see and cannot touch them, we are remembering and grieving together. People across the world – and close to home – are sharing the journey. Reach out, help and loving support is closer than you think.

photo by Daria Shatova on Unsplash