My Great plan was to write this post right after Easter Sunday with another, new topic, post ready for Pentecost.
Several drafts fell short. That is nothing new. Writers often struggle with finding the right word, turn of phrase for what they are trying to communicate. It is part of the process.
My friend read a draft and said I sounded angry. I rewrote and this time asked someone new. Same feedback: Anger. A friend called and asked why I sounded angry.
I didn’t feel particularly angry. Not “You zipped into that parking place you could see me waiting for” or “You said something hateful against someone without cause” angry. Rather, I felt a heavy sadness.
How could I write about Mercy, Grace and the Resurrection of Unity when I wasn’t feeling it and there were almost no examples of it in my current Catholic experience with my siblings in Christ?
I spent the weeks between Easter and Pentecost prayerfully looking inward at my ‘diagnosed’ anger.
Pentecost came and went and still I couldn’t put my finger on it until a few days ago when my closest friend of the past decade,
Jean Allen Thomas,
died.
For Jean, it was a long time coming, a lifetime of heart trouble, but for the last six months she was hospitalized, then rehab that didn’t work, then assisted living until being re-hospitalized. I hadn’t seen her for those six months because of my own mobility issues with a broken foot, the pandemic and the restrictions on visitors where she was staying. Our phone calls and emails were few because of her lack of energy.
I am grieving. I recognize it. I am familiar with the grief of being the left behind by the beloved dead. With Jean, there was no Denial stage in my grieving process–we knew it was coming.
There was no Anger stage, because she was suffering so much.
Neither was there a Bargaining stage, because at our age, with so many medical conditions, we know each day is a non-renewable gift.
With Jean, there was just my sadness at no longer being able to see her, talk with her, eat and laugh with her leaves a gaping void in my life.
Because of how she lived, and our many conversations, I’m also happy for Jean because I am certain she now rests, pain free, and healed in the arms of our Lord Jesus, in Whom she put all her faith and trust. The Acceptance stage, arrived quickly.
So did the epiphany: my friends were right…sort of…I’ve been angry but it’s Grief-Angry for Five Years.
It’s been like a 5-year death march.
Grieving is my “New Normal”
2016.. Murder/Suicide: The Murder of Objective Truth and the Suicide of Journalistic Integrity
As I mentioned in another post, the phrase “new normal” was actually coined by a drug company advertisement for their drug that helps women with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. [metastatic means it’s spread throughout the body and death is coming] but this drug will hopefully give them more time with loved ones and a more ‘normal’ life in whatever time left by slowing down the inevitable progression of the disease.
In 2016, as news outlets became divided camps during the outrageously vulgar, Presidential Campaign, whole networks chose a candidate and with the wholesale slaughter of Truth and journalists–to keep the paychecks flowing–Slit the wrists of their integrity. Neither survived and the vulture Fake News, devoured the carcasses that once had been a foundation premise of American society [“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”] and all major religions [“Thou shalt no bear false witness.” ]
2017 – The Death of Decency and the Long Goodbye, the Dementia Death of Democracy
Decency: behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability.
“The Long Goodbye “ is a book written by Ronald Reagan’s daughter about how his Alzheimer’s is a protracted death-by-inches as the Patient loses the ability to remember who they are and what they are supposed to be doing from one moment to the next..
This long goodbye is particularly true as the beginning of the ‘end” of the Republican Party as most of us know it… still honorable in the days of Eisenhower as a bi-partisan party capable of many good things.
When Democracy forgets what it’s foundational ideals are, when it panders to, say Neo-Nazis forgetting what our parents fought against and died for [and against] in WWII, when fair elections devolve into voter suppression forgetting that every American’s vote matters, we have the incremental death of democracy.
When it separates women from their children and puts them in cages.
I was clearly grieving the death of democracy.
2018 – The Entire Planet on Death Row
The Trump administration in full swing, signs DOZENS of Executive Orders aimed at undermining the planet [unless for the profit of a select few friends-of-Trump], America withdraws from Accords, Climate Change groups and Trump unilaterally UNDOES decades of Environmental protections, hamstrings the EPA with cuts and the FAKE NEWS machine keeps talking over the dead bodies of truth and journalistic integrity.
Many Christians –well aware since childhood, that in THE VERY FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, in the very first days of Creation itself– God gives us stewardship [as in moral, responsible, protective] over the earth and every living thing on it. There’s no way to translate that into: feel free, as the dominant species to rape & pillage the earth’s natural resources, pollute the air and water, all for your enjoyment and momentary riches and don’t bother worrying about future generations.
This is just one year. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/dec/21/deadly-weather-the-human-cost-of-2018s-climate-disasters-visual-guide
2019 – GLOBAL GRIEF Pandemic Kills Millions
The Truth in Media long dead is resurrected as a Zombie Apocalypse– Luring the ignorant and unsuspecting to their deaths by getting them to choose sensational huckster Fake news over Science.
And with surge #4 escalating–even with the vaccine around for 6 months…those choosing politics over Science are bringing more people to death’s door…and now they are younger people. Even the vaccinated are not safe because of the unvaccinated moving about freely pretending to be vaccinated. And the surge? 95% are the unvaccinated. Success leaves clues. The unvaccinated remain “clueless.”
The President of our country– certainly aware that the elderly and minorities living in poverty would be the hardest hit, with the most certain casualties–took the opportunity to rid the country of the expensive elderly and less than GNP lucrative members of society by DOWNPLAYING THE ACTUAL SCIENCE, by dragging national feet hampering and outright failing to do what the SCIENTISTS, CDC and WHO told Trump what the Administration SHOULD DO and what would happen if they didn’t. They didn’t. They knew and they didn’t.
So Trump held packed, mask-less rallies telling everyone it was only like the flu and would soon blow over…that act was nothing short of deliberate malfeasance in this monsoon of misinformation. The death tolls mounted but the now propagandized, ignorant ANTI-SCIENCERs fought the people/agencies/practices who could save their lives.
But to give the devil his due, Trump was right–as is a broken clock twice a day: Corona Virus 19 was indeed “like the flu”… The Spanish Flu of 1918 :
It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States from the Spanish FLu of 1918
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html
COVID 19 has killed–(and is still killing)
33.5 MILLION world wide…
Americans ……606,525 dead and still dying.
[at this writing]
How many of those lives might have been saved if Science was more important than politics, if Republican Governors had done what Michigan’s Gretchen Witmer did [and for her efforts to save us she got armed militias running around inside the capitol, as well as kidnapping attempts and death threats along with entire media outlets disparaging her].
2020- A year in lockdown, The Good, the Dead and the Ugly. Another Presidential Campaign with all the usual suspects, lies and dirty tricks to suppress minority voters.
The murder of George Floyd (bad) but Good from bad: the Puss-Filled Boil of Systemic Racism is FINALLY Lanced and brought into the light FOR HEALING. The murderer convicted in court of law.
An Election win for someone in his right mind and many more diverse representatives of what demographics our nation REALLY contains and restoration of hope for the future.
Massive lies about election fraud, the dismantling/removing of mailboxes to make voting by mail more difficult in minority neighborhoods.
The endless lies that the election was stolen. Continuing into 2021.
A Vaccine to end the Pandemic— but thwarted by the LIES of the Right Wing News and now, add to that the theologically-challenged who say God will protect them from the Pandemic so they don’t need the shot… yeah, good luck with that.
FYI, If God doesn’t protect innocent children from slaughter at the hands of school shooters or abusive parents or the innocent in any victimization, let’s get real about God protecting ANYONE from COVID.. Frankly, God doesn’t protect any of us from anything–least of all, our own obstinate self-destructive, selfish actions and the consequences.
What He does do… is walk with us, sit with us at the funeral of a COVID DEAD friend while we pay the consequences for disobeying common sense pandemic behaviors and our lack of self -discipline to not party/gather with the unvaccinated.
Worse still is to spread ignorant lies that pit Science again Religion and Politics against Science…both prevent people from getting vaccinated and saving lives. All from the people claiming to be “Pro-Life.”
I do hope they ask God how pleased He was with those decisions that resulted in someone’s or their own death.
I continue to grieve the death of common sense, the ongoing deaths in journalism, and the death of MY freedom because I can do longer trust my neighbor to NOT endanger me by lying that they’ve been vaccinated–when they haven’t.
2021- a new President, Insurrection, Two Great Houses Divided– the Government and the Catholic Church.
I’ll only comment on the first House Divided–the Government.
My 5-years of Grief-Anger within the Catholic Church will require a subsequent, (or perhaps more than one) post.
The election win was marred by the lies of a “stolen election”, the treasonous insurrection on January 6th of the Capitol incited by non-other than the outgoing President/administration and was far more than the sour grapes of a loser.
It is a caveat–a warning that if the[using my terminology] ‘New American Fascist -Obstructionist Party’ – that has taken over the Republican Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, is not punished for it’s treason, it’s current dereliction of duty via obstructionism, and it’s anti-democratic suppression of voting rights…then the grief will continue… because the dying won’t stop anytime soon.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) Original…
This is the longer version outside the Holocaust Memorial
My friends were half right…
I had lots of Anger… but it was a different kind of Grief Anger.
It was the New Normal of endless grief, of exhaustion from the heavy cross and heartbreak of grieving… the still living,
It was the New Normal of grieving the DEATH of relationships that are now so toxic, so dangerous that to continue them would be catalyst for the demise of my body and perhaps even my soul.
My heart is still, 5 years later heavy with grief…Grief for those who continue to die from COVID in the middle of this 2021 because they won’t get vaccinated, because they believed the lies, because they spread the lies and will die because of it.
My heart is broken because my “family,” my Church family is broken and I’m grieving my lost siblings in Christ who’ve chosen politics over science, and division over unity.
We’ve all been through a great ordeal these past 5 years… make your own list, look inward and find what has broken your heart, broken your trust… what and who you’re grieving and then, lay it all, as I have, at the foot of the Cross…
Until Next Time…
Thora Wease Writes 