February is a month of many family birthdays, anniversaries, and deaths. Naturally this engenders celebration and contemplation. Join me for a moment as I consider an instance of this.
Reflecting on a Pandemic Loss
This past Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of my Grandma Kay’s death. It was a surreal occasion. While I’ll reserve a later post for a fuller reflection on the wonderful woman she was, it’s important to pause to reflect on the nature of pandemic deaths.
COVID-19 wasn’t the cause of Grandma’s death. Like many elderly people, 2020-2021 signaled the typical progression of sickness and disease that most eventually succumb to, while others leave us under more tragic circumstances. What marks many of the deaths of the last two years is the prolonged periods of separation that many families endured. Many couldn’t visit their loved ones in nursing homes and hospitals, even in the final weeks of life. Many couldn’t have traditional funeral services, including in-person visitation. The pandemic touched nearly all our bereavement experiences, whether our deceased loved ones died from COVID-19 or died with it—an important distinction.
Kay Frances Moore Hicks (1935-2021), 85, “widow of Elbert Hartwell Hicks, Sr. died Tuesday, February 16, at McLeod Hospice House surrounded by her loving children.” This is the way Grandma’s obituary reads. The rest of it describes some of the basics of her life, family, and contributions. That’s what the public reads. Those of us who knew her think of her voice, her touch, her presence, and love. Her touch and presence were absent for long periods of time in that last year as she was in a nursing home, often quarantined. Visits happened through a window, Facetime, and often the telephone. For all our grief over this, we’re grateful for what the nursing home staff did to facilitate our contact. After all, they weren’t making the rules. They certainly didn’t invent the virus.
Amid our sadness, we had to find a way to celebrate the fact that her voice and love weren’t absent from our lives, even if her presence and touch were. I still recall several conversations over the phone with her, especially as she anxiously awaited word on my progress toward parenthood. When I hold my son today, I often think of the sheer delight he would have brought to her. I also recall the group Facetime call with her on her birthday. What an odd situation! Here was a woman born during the Roosevelt presidency sitting in front of an electronic rectangle communicating with family members across three different states.
I imagine that others who lost loved ones during the pandemic resonate with these experiences. I remind myself to be grateful, knowing that the circumstances were much more painful for others.
Aside from the difficulty of losing her during this extended time of separation, as well as her dying prior to my wife’s pregnancy, the most difficult part is the fact that I had my grandmother in my life until I was nearly 36 years old.
The point that I want to stress is this: sorrow often coincides with gratitude. On the one hand, my grandmother was a part of nearly all the major seasons of my life. She witnessed all my major achievements and setbacks. She was a prayer warrior and supporter all the way through. Someone I had been so accustomed to having was taken away. On the other hand, how many generations in modern times can say, “I had an active, authentic, personal relationship with my grandmother until I was in my mid-30s”? Honesty forces me to see that the loss coincides with the gain. And that doesn’t even begin to consider her own gain by now being in the presence of Jesus!
I can’t speak for everyone who experienced a loss in the last two years. Every situation is as different as the people involved. But at least for believers, one of our spiritual obligations is to ensure that we don’t allow our grief or sadness to be the major sound in the chorus of life. There’s too much to be grateful for.
The church is a people who grieve, but not as those who have no hope. We must hold both parts of that Scriptural admonition together. To grieve is to be human. Too often our “celebration of life” grammar distorts and nearly denies the deep sense of loss that requires time to face and process. Conversely, we sometimes let ourselves or others become isolated from the body of Christ, thinking that somehow the grief will lessen if we steer clear of personal attachments and commitments.
The people of God have an obligation to their brothers and sisters, to their lost neighbors, and to God. We owe the Lord our gratitude. And according to the Psalms, we can grieve before Him, too! We owe our brothers and sisters the chance to serve us, even when we just want to curl up into a hole and die. We also owe them our presence when they suffer as we have. And as we consider how many families are grieving without biblical hope, we certainly owe them the witness of people who do indeed hope. We hope in the resurrection, and the promise of glory.
Because Kay Hicks today rests in peace, I must also.
Currently Reading:
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul
I encourage readers to consider checking out FWBTheology.com, the official website of the Free Will Baptist Commission for Theological Integrity. I will publish a post there this Tuesday on a widely misunderstood topic.