In America, a Grief Observed
Not too long ago, I reached out to my long-time friend Cheyn to see whether he was okay and how he was holding up. He told me he was good and had returned home since his grad school had closed and he had lost his job. When he asked me “How about you?”, tears began streaming down my face. Randomly crying hasn’t exactly been unusual for me as of late. In many ways, we are all dealing with loss in so many parts of our lives that it’s almost unavoidable.
As third culture kids, moving around frequently has accustomed us to loss. When our lifestyle has allowed for a greater sense of flexibility, anxiety and stress can naturally crop up. When I was in the process of moving to Qatar, I remember feeling melancholy about leaving. So much of my life was rooted in Atlanta, moving to a foreign country with my family never crossed my mind. Yet, my mum and I found ourselves in the Middle East for six years.
I’m currently in the States, and I’m grieving for so many things: the delayed response to the pandemic and its consequences to the doctors lacking proper medical equipment as they risk their lives to save others. From the constant death surrounding the virus, to the everyday routines and human connections we took for granted. I miss being able to go out to a bar or to a live show with the luxury of being relatively safe. Or even just the simple act of taking the subway while listening to the train crossing the bridge into the city. The beauty of the sunlight hitting the windows during the morning commute.
I grieve the loss of normalcy.
This grief over loss of normalcy brings me back to the time I started school in Qatar. Attending an international school was so different from what I was used to. Even our weekday schedule of Sunday to Thursday was one that took some adjusting. All in all, I feel immense sadness for the life and the friends I left in what I considered my “normal” life. There were countless times I imagined myself in an alternate reality in which I had stayed: walking the halls of Grady High, attending football games or happily chatting with friends I grew up with (like Cheyn) in the cafeteria. This exercise was my strange way of coping with the loss of a familiar place.
I grieve for victims of police brutality and violence too. I grieve, because the country I’m a citizen of upholds historical white supremacy, a system many people benefit from without realizing it. I grieve because America has a long lineage of violence and hatred against its own citizens.
But most of all, I grieve because of repeated history. In many ways, history seems to keep recurring.
However, the changes I’ve seen have allowed for a rebirth to occur too.
The pandemic has revealed to us the cracks in our society, perhaps so that we may fix them. The inspiring protests have created movements to defund the police and invest in communities of color around the country. People have begun necessary antiracism work to understand POC communities and the current system that prioritizes certain skin colors. It is beautiful to see people wanting to be on the right side of history.
In his book A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis writes, “For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs.”
Sometimes I find myself surrendering to the grief.
It is welcoming a new me.
A new country.
A new beginning.