What we have lost

There aren’t many events in life that will turn one's life upside down more than a global pandemic and the birth of your first child. For my husband and I, these two occurrences took place almost simultaneously. We arrived home on the first day of March with our son, knowing deeply that our world had irrevocably changed. What we didn’t know was that the whole world was also irrevocably changing at the same time.

Visitors brought us generous gifts and stories of toilet paper and pasta flying off supermarket shelves. We laughed smugly as we’d already stocked up on essential items, anticipating we’d rarely be leaving the house in those heady newborn days.

A little under a month into our son’s life strict measures were introduced here in Australia. At first it felt like the country was going into solidarity isolation with us, we were rarely venturing out...our whole world was this tiny new being and he had us captivated. Eventually, restrictions were eased and as the country began to navigate a new normal, so do we...day by day I am learning what it looks like to be a mother.

Right now, motherhood is tinged with grief….I find myself grieving for what we have lost, the experiences of parenthood that have been snatched from us due to the virus. Grandparents doting on their newest grandchild, sharing our son with our church community, opportunities to catch up on sleep while friends and family care for the baby, a photo of our family that isn’t a selfie.

“But, as I mourn, I find it difficult to turn to God ”

But, as I mourn, I find it difficult to turn to God and handover my sadness and grief. I feel that coming to God with my personal losses diminishes the losses that millions are experiencing much more violently than I.

The World Bank estimates suggest that COVID-19 will push 49 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 . Gains made in gender equality over the last decades are at risk of being rolled back, with the economic and health impacts of the virus disproportionately affecting women and gender-based violence increasing at alarming rates. Data from America also indicates that people of colour have an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 because of racial injustices that pervade health care systems.

When I have had the capacity to reflect on COVID-19, front of my mind are the many systemic injustices that are being exposed by the pandemic. Everyone has or will lose something at the hands of coronavirus (whether directly or indirectly), but the impact of these losses for the oppressed and vulnerable are compounded. Yet, I am still so deeply sad for my own experience and struggle to hold my grief and the grievances others are experiencing in tandem. At times, the tension pulls so tightly that I fear it will snap and my world will begin to unravel.

As the days pass and the tears flow, I cry out to God asking for help to hold my deep sadness, as well as the worlds. It is a task that I do not feel equipped to do….and it is when I cry out to God, that I am reminded that I do not need to hold my sadness, the world's sadness on my own. Rather, I am called to release this sadness into the hands of Jesus who acutely understands the human experience and each human experience.

It does not mean that I will not continue to mourn, because it is valid. Each experience of this pandemic is genuine and we will all have deep sorrow. However, I am learning to take what I have lost to God and that our Creator has the capacity to hold my grief, your grief and the grief of the world.