In loving memory of ‘us’: facing grief during the time of COVID-19 through redirecting perception of life’s realities

Abstract

Recent correspondence highlighted the complicated process of grief in the time of COVID-19 where some family members and the dying person too are undergoing distress. New rituals can lighten the process of coping with grief or death, one may find it difficult to hurdle such situation and move on without first redirecting one’s perception on the different realities of life. There are things that we can control but at the same time, things that are beyond our reach. With these realities, acceptance plays a key role to handle the situation. Acceptance is a person’s assent to life’s realities. Creativity in accepting grief or death is finding ways to lighten the heavy emotion of the ‘ones left and the one leaving’ through a preservation of memory. This is done through safeguarding and reliving the memories of the dead with various programs and advocacies.