Dubai Diaries: Making sense of loss during pandemic

What does loss mean during a pandemic? Many may argue that loss is loss — pandemic or no pandemic. But I do find the pandemic has changed the way we react to loss or the prospect of loss. Either we see death as yet another number in a long list of people we have already lost in the past year, or we feel trapped in our inability to participate in the grief the way we once did.

There were at least two occasions last week when I felt compelled to question my changing sense of an ending. On a regular weekday, my husband informed me his aunt had passed away. “Which one?” I asked, given that he has a big family and I have met most members only once. “My eldest uncle’s wife. Remember, you met her when you went to Kerala?” That was eight years ago when we tied the knot and I remember being greeted most warmly. I knew my husband was hurting, but I remained silent… not because I was unaffected but because I didn’t possess words that could soothe him.

Two days later, my best friend called. Her mother, who was being treated for cancer, was put on ventilator and she’d been steadily deteriorating. Again, I was running short of words to console her. I oscillated between keeping hope alive and preparing my friend for a life in which her mother would be absent.