“In times of deep darkness, we not only need light —
we need to be light for one another.”
–Parker J. Palmer

Dear Anam Caras,

I write this post to mark the one year anniversary of when it was officially recognized that our planet was living through a global pandemic. I write this post to acknowledge the co-existence of Grief and Gratitude. My prayers continue that all beings have what they need at this time.

February 23, 2021, Woodridge, Illinois

At 7:30 a.m., I enter the Edward-Elmhurst Health & Fitness Center at Seven Bridges. A security guard checks my temperature and paperwork, and then directs me to a huge gym space. It is oddly silent in the absence of the usual trash-talking group of sweaty, red-faced middle-aged men lobbing basketballs around, shoes squeaking shrilly on the waxed floor. Instead, a low hum floats up from the long line of people snaking around the empty basketball court in an orderly fashion. We range in age from elders like me to young ones dressed to go to the office. I’m curious if the younger ones are “Essential Workers” like four of my immediate family members—a teacher, two nurses, and a journalist.

Suddenly, the line surges ahead into an adjacent room. There I behold another huge space. It is filled with twenty tables where 40 nurses stand, alert, smiling, and ready to give each of us a miraculous Lifeline, the Pfizer vaccine.

I gaze around and burst out sobbing, overwhelmed with grief and gratitude. I don’t care if people stare at me and back away. A torrent of tears drench my masked face.

I think about the announcement that came yesterday:

Covid-19 deaths reached 500, 000, surpassing the number of Americans killed during the Civil War (498,332); World Wars I and II (116,516 and 405,399, respectively); and all American wars since 1945 combined, — Korea (54,246), Vietnam (90,220); and Desert Storm/Desert Shield (1,948) — Department of Veterans Affairs records show.

“For sure it’s an incredibly sobering milestone,” says William Schaffner, MD, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “It’s an awful lot of human beings. They all have relatives; they all have families. It’s not just numbers; it’s a vast number of people and all their social networks that are in mourning.”

I mourn this monstrous and unnecessary loss of life. I think about the grieving families of the 500,000 American souls. In a few weeks the toll will rise to a total of 2,636,769 souls worldwide who have succumbed from the virus during the past year. I think about those who survived and continue to suffer the virus’s lingering aftereffects.

I think about all the Essential Workers who have applied their skills for over a year, trying to save countless lives. They battled valiantly, often unequipped with the necessary resources. So many fingers in the dike trying to hold off the unrelenting onslaught of this killer virus. I think about the trauma these medical workers continue to carry.

Season 3 of the superb series, New Amsterdam, returned on March 2, 2021, telling the poignant story of the last year. The fictional New Amsterdam Hospital is in the heart of New York City where real life, massive devastating losses occurred last year.

Episode 1 contains a searing scene. It’s the end of the work day. In a hospital corridor, staff members are plopped down on the floor, held by walls stronger than their exhausted spines. Their masks hang down limply revealing bare, inflamed and scarred faces rubbed raw by endless days of wearing masks. It was a brilliant, realistic way to illustrate the trauma borne by hospital staff.

In Episode 2, we see two doctors on a bench gazing at a Tree of Life mural. Previously the Tree of Life celebrated the arrival of newborn babies. Now the Tree of Life mural carries the names of hospital staff members that died in the pandemic.

It is difficult to witness such suffering. It is human nature to want to move on swiftly from painful events. We want to suppress our emotional reaction. Too often when traumatized people try to tell their stories, they are scapegoated, scorned and disbelieved. It’s as if the pain must be denied and kept secret. This is a deeply flawed yet understandable way humans cope with horror.

We are part of Life, not apart from Life. Good mental health involves witnessing without judging ALL parts of life—its times of suffering and its times of joy.

TEARS OF OKAGESAMADE

My Kriya Yoga lineage teaches a practice called Okagesamade. (oh-caw-kaw-saw-ma-day) This word is from the ancient Japanese Zen tradition. It means, “Because of you, this moment is possible.” The practice involves consciously pausing to acknowledge all the known and unknown people who have contributed to the specific moment you are experiencing. For many years, the Okagesamade practice has been essential to my mental health and spiritual maturation.

That day in the gym right before receiving my first vaccine, tears of Okagesamade came, mixed in with tears of grief. I looked around in wonder at the orderly process, at the kind and calm nurses, and at the special refrigeration units keeping the vaccine at the correct temperature of minus 112ºF to minus 76ºF.

I wept with gratitude, imagining the thousands of anonymous people who had labored 24/7 for months to make that moment possible for each of us in the gymnasium.

March 11, 2021 marks one year since the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. It is also the birthday of my late, beloved only brother, Geoffrey John Beddoe. Geoff was 59 years old when he passed away ten years ago. I miss his playful nature, his sparkling blue eyes and mischievous smile and contagious chuckle. I wish I had been more appreciative of how often Geoff’s joy and humor lightened my serious nature. Okagesamade, Geoff, okagesamade, dear brother.

In relationships, you create an environment
with your work on yourself,
which you offer to another human being
to use in the way they need to grow. 

You keep working.
You become the soil—moist and soft and receptive—
so the person can grow the way they need to grow, 
because how do you know how they should grow?

After a while, you come to appreciate
that what you can offer another human being
is to work on yourself, to be a statement 
of what it is you have found in the way you live your life. 

One of the things you will find
is the ability to appreciate what is,
as it is, in equanimity, compassion,
and love that isn’t conditional.

You don’t love a person more
because they are happier
 in the way you think they should be.

What you cultivate in yourself
is the garden where they can grow,
 and you offer your consciousness
and the spaciousness to hear it.
–Ram Dass

AN INVITATION

May you continue to remember and share the beautiful Heart-Light of your true nature.
May you always remember you are part of Life, not apart from life.
May you navigate 2021 with wisdom, creativity, curiosity, and joy.
May you remember and be guided by the hard lessons of 2020.
May 2021 bring you, our Mother Earth, and ALL our planet’s beings healing, hope, and peace.

Most of all, may you walk in Beauty today and all the days of your life, dear friends.

Love,