Making Grief a Connection During a Time of Distance

On the 3rd of February I boarded a plane. The Delta Airlines safety announcement sprung upon every screen, the voice and subtitles gliding along with the scenes displayed: people traveling... smiling people, happy people. I choked back tears as I felt a wave of grief wash upon the shore of my heart, only to hear the professionally groomed voice say,
“The first step to connection is departure.” The words hit me profoundly, in a way they never had before despite traveling exclusively with Delta for a couple of years.

The thought comforted me as a paradox: to connect you must leave. In any other moment I would not have given those words much thought, but they gave me something I lacked: hope. The hope that this departure was for a greater connection, a much more important one.

Rewind and go two hours back: you’ll see me running through the terminal to catch my flight, waiting in line, paying my fee, checking my bag, and now stop: there I am in his arms. My fuzzy coat is soft against his skin, he nestles his head into my shoulder, bending over as he does so. I whisper up into his ear,

“One week, babe.” We made an agreement: if in one week we can’t continue with this distance, I will come back. I knew, deep down, I would need to be in the States for longer than one week.

Finances were the driving reason for that sense. But I certainly considered eight weeks longer than long enough. I had made a list of reasons to go back: cut my hair, eat the foods I want, work, see friends and family, be busy with something other than staying at home (as I was doing while Don would be in school).

But a promise is a promise.

Yesterday, our “one week” was reaching a point of arriving, a departure would soon connect us again. Only twelve days remained, so miniscule, so easy to overcome. Plans were made. I started daydreaming about him picking me up at the airport, the random hugs and the kisses on the forehead, oh, and the laughter. Yet tears would seep out of my eyes, agony stretching deeply in my gut, every news update and every cancelation making me fearful. I laughingly defied it, telling my boss,

“You don’t need to put ME on the schedule for April, I am still flying and they can quarantine me if they want!”

Doubt crept in as soon as I spoke those words.

“So, how long were you going to be down there for?” a coworker asked me out of the blue. I said,

“One month,” and quickly realized she was assuming I was no longer going to travel, even though I had told no one I was changing my plans, only the opposite: I am sticking with them. I did not correct her mistake though, because the seed of doubt had sprouted and I was beginning to wonder if she was simply announcing a decision I was on the brink of making.

COVID-19. Money. Travel. Quarantine. Alone. Lonely.

All these words circulate my head the entire day. Everything I encounter makes me aggravated and upset. I ask each doctor, resident, physical therapist, dietary person, and nurse for their opinion:

“Don’t go,”

“I wouldn’t do it!”

“Absolutely not,”

“You’re staying here."

Fast forward, yank my heart, you’ll find me in a dark living room, Colleen’s apartment. I am glad I am there, because I will not sleep alone on the night I make such a heavy, awful decision. I am crying, the tears are getting my phone wet. We evaluate, we assess, we are trying to make a decision based off of logic and wisdom, not the emotions we are so vividly feeling.

After hashing out all of the options and listening to Don describe to me what is going on there at this time, I venture into the waters of summarizing our thoughts:

“So, our decision is I won’t be coming down to see you….?” my voice wanders at the end of the question.

“No, bebé, no you won’t.”

I sniff, I dry my eyes, I take a Tums.

We chat a little more, we say goodnight. I curl up into Colleen’s bed and fall quickly asleep.

In my dreams I hop out of the car and see Walter and Papá who are sitting near the house, waiting for me: I have come back home.

My trip to the bathroom at night reminded me of the truth, however, and helped me when I woke up at 5:30am to accept the fact that I was not home and would not be returning home anytime soon.

My feelings since that day have been less agonizing, but still just as sad, just as mournful. I grieve frequently all of the things I had hoped to experience during that one month together. Our first year wedding anniversary, falling asleep with Don after long, contemplative conversations, traveling across the country to the one place I had been wanting to visit for a long while: Samaná. I had almost booked an AirBnB.

It was more than those experiences, however, for I was solely longing to have Don nearby, to have, as the surgeon at work told me, my “chosen other half.” He is chosen, he is mine, he is a decision and an overwhelmingly powerful force within my life. Near or far, he draws me to him, and when we FaceTime I am tortured to see his face and realize I am forgetting what it feels like to be near it. It is a dementia of the body.

Yet after the grief, anger, sorrow, and disappointment faded away, I open my heart up to see things differently. I said it aloud before I even had understood what it meant:

“Everyone around the world is sacrificing something.”

I may feel this sacrifice of mine is a much more keenly painful one than others, I may be bitter when I see people sad they do not have access to a gym or a bar, or bitter when I see people who are able to be quarantined together. But then I decided to look closer, to see the people who are sacrificing their jobs, who are without money and food, who may be closing their businesses as a result of this situation, people whose weddings are postponed, graduations cancelled, college plans thwarted, fertility treatments rescheduled, people whose loved ones will die because of this.

Rather than giving grief a hierarchy, I am choosing to make grief a connection. My own circumstances are overwhelming, but if I can step into your pain and feel it with you--at least to a certain degree--we will form a bond of compassion and empathy. This is nothing, nothing in comparison to other atrocities in the world, but it is affecting unprecedented amounts of people. So, in a time of distancing, rather than bearing bitterness and resentment, we should bear one another.

Perhaps Delta had it right but I had understood it wrong: the first step to connection is departure from our jealousies, our bitterness, and our need to be the one most greatly suffering.

The first step to connection is departure from our circumstances and a leaning in (from six feet away), regardless of how I might view your pain and how you might view mine.

The first step to connection is departure from giving gradings on grief and suffering and instead, understanding grief as a home we are all living in.

It is not our forever home, for this too shall pass, but it is the location of our hearts at this moment. When the time comes, we will move on, but hopefully with a deeper, greater understanding of how to be more selfless, kind, patient, united, and at peace. And may we depart from that house with an incomprehensible desire to connect.