We are drowning in grief
This 800 word essay was written as part of a writing assignment with a Writing Mentorship earlier this spring. It covers the news story of the Nova Scotia shootings on April 19, 2020. Though that story and tragedy has passed, many of us are face with new found grief at the tragic realization of the prevalence of systemic racism, and specifically the evil that exists within white silence on the racism against the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) community in both the USA and Canada. I believe many of us are faced with various levels of grief daily, and I hope this essay brings comfort and encouragement.
I stood at my kitchen sink on a Sunday night washing dishes, considering our wonderful day. Well, it was mostly wonderful except for a short conflict right after dinner. But I don’t need to dwell on that right? Anyways, I washed and scrubbed the last of the Chinese pork bone soup off our bowls and pans when suddenly a bright light flashed into my eyes. I looked up and saw my neighbour Wayne, holding up a flashlight, shining it from his kitchen window into ours. I smiled and waved back. Getting to meet Wayne and Patty next door has been a highlight of this physical distancing, shelter at home, season. Offering them a fresh loaf of sourdough bread a few weeks before opened up new relational opportunities–some I’ve been praying for, for a while.
Wayne motioned for me to open my window. A gust of winter air rushed in, obviously oblivious to the signs of spring outside. If it was possible to make snow illegal in April, I think all of Canada would be dolling out tickets by now. I peered out into the dark night and saw Wayne on his back deck. He shouted across the alley, “Did you hear the news?! It’s so terrible all the deaths. There’s 16 of them! And it was planned too! The man was even dressed up in a RCMP uniform! As if, this is the last thing we need!”
What was going on? An RCMP uniform? Deaths? Shootings? Wayne described to me the news from that day from Nova Scotia that was breaking all over the country: While our nation is hunkering down, staying home to keep everyone safe from COVID-19, there was a madman masquerading up as a police officer and going on a killing spree out east.
How tragic. Our hearts are already breaking for those who are suffering and dying in isolation from COVID-19, and now all of Canada’s hearts are breaking for the brokenness and pure evil that eclipsed rural Nova Scotia this past weekend. Wayne was right, this news was the last thing we needed to hear and experience. We’re already facing a global and generational trauma with this virus–we don’t need another generational and corporate trauma of a mass shooting.
Does evil beget evil? Evil and death haunt our society, our cities, our communities, and our homes. It’s unmistakable. No matter where we turn, it seems like grief, loss, and brokenness follow us. It’s inescapable. My colleague Deb, who lives in Halifax, described it this way, “What already felt like saturation [of loss from COVID-19] has now turned into a fear of drowning. Like the ocean waves that smash into our Atlantic ocean shores during a hurricane, we have been hit hard.”
What does carrying on look like when faced with such evil like a mass shooting, or the destruction caused by COVID-19? Not only in our nation, but in our communities, in our own homes, and families. God can even appear silent and absent in such moments of pure devastation. Does he meet us in our grief, even when we are tempted to feel swallowed and smashed up by the death around us?
I turn to the laments in the book of Lamentations in the Old Testament. A book of poetry that is dedicated to the grief and loss of the destruction of a city, is fitting for a time when it seems as if the cities and communities we are in, being destroyed. Yet even in the physical, emotional, and somewhat spiritual death all around us, the author of Lamentations reminds that at the end of it all, is a God who is steadfast and offers new mercies. Does it take away the pain of the night? The horrificness of loss? The lives now filled with the literal–and emotional–ashes of their loved ones lost all too soon? No. These things remain for this time. But along with the loss and lament, a new friend sits on the doorstep of our homes. Hope. Lamentations 3:24 says, “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”
How do hope and grief mingle together? We are drowning in grief, and yet it’s hard to feel as though we are drowning in hope. Hope is a lot harder to muster up these days. But it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It hides in the small act of a neighbour seeking connection. In the grandmother who mails homemade masks to her grandchildren. It peeks its head out of the ground along with the tulips and the sedums (even when surrounded by springtime snow). Hope finds itself more and more each day, ever present in our lives, if we’re able to seek it out and grab hold of it–our rock in the waves of grief.
Photo by Gabriele Diwald