There was a program on NPR recently during which a woman who had suffered a singular loss reported how she had found comfort in the five stages of grief. Then some time later she an horrific resurgence of that grief, and terrible anger that what she thought was nearly under control, wasn’t. Kubler Ross was initially lionized then criticized because people thought she’d been too simplistic and linear. However, she never promised us a clean, neat, crisp and predictable progression; she simply named stages. Like all transitions, grief is far more like being on a tossing, fitful ocean. When the grief is compounded as in your case and for so many others due to Covid and so much more, it’s so easy to go numb. I can’t relate to all your losses but for my part last year was similarly heaped with losses, and in a remote way I can relate. Only remote. I so very much hear your pain and wish I could fire you a package of powerful Northwestern hugs.

I can tell you that the light does come. I have a very close friend who was joined at the hip with her mother. She was devastated when her Mom passed even though it was years coming. I call her on mother’s day for that reason.

There really is no neat way to wrap grief up and put it into permanent storage. It becomes a part of us. Rising with a terrible unpredictability, reopening the wounds, and reminding us how helpless we truly are in face of such emotions. Ultimately I’ve had to come some measure of peace with my great losses, the way a landscape remakes itself after the death of a great tree. I remember the tree and how much I loved it. All I could do was plant another. I wish you peace as the sun touches your part of the world each morning.