This blog post by John Pavlovitz - The grief we postponed - is so true.
There is so much that we have all experienced that just got swept up in the umbrella of "pandemic". But each instance deserves its own funeral.
I lost my mother but could not go to her funeral.
John's 10 year anniversary of his passing was last year and I had planned a once-in-a-lifetime trip to commemorate it but that was canceled and can never be regained. His 10 year anniversary will never come again. I had to mark it alone.
Sadly, I learned some things about friends and family that I didn't know they harbored in their minds and hearts and I may never look at them the same way gain.
The isolation was something that I feared would break me but with the comfort and care of friends and therapists I got through it. But I never want to go through that again.
I know each of us have our own stories.
We deserve to give ourselves permission to mourn each of those events.