New Year, Same Grief

I think that we can all agree that 2020 was pretty terrible for humanity. Too many lives lost due to COVID-19, horrendous acts of racism, economic strife, public disinformation, wild fires, political unrest, murder hornets... terrible. 

And now that we’ve kicked off a new year, many people are keen to put 2020 behind them. The only problem is that grief cannot be put behind us, and for those in the thick of it, the flipping of a calendar will not bring about the renewal that others may feel. 

In light of that, some reminders before we start off a new professional year on Monday: 

Colleagues all around us will be grieving losses of all kinds. Clients and acquaintances may deal with grief in their own individual ways, in silence or in loud booming voices. There are no stages of grief- it is messy and complicated. People will speak different grief languages and may experience sudden upsurges of grief- unannounced and unwelcome as those moments may be. And finally, there is no “right” way to grieve. 

We’re all human... so let’s try to make 2021 a year to recommit to treating each other with humanity.