The COVID-19 crisis has taken a toll on so many of us to varying degrees. Not being able to see or hug friends and family has been the most brutal of all. The pandemic, like with anything else has its boons and banes.  The quarantine did and did not help my grieving process of having lost my husband Anand. I appreciated the slow down in the pace of life. Although the whole world has been battling a pandemic, there was a calm in the air. There wasn’t this sense of being rushed, rushed to heal at everyone else’s pace and timeline. Not being asked “have you started work yet?” lifted a weight off my shoulders. To be able to heal at my own pace, just like the planet and mother nature were doing now, without human expectations or intervention. I felt I could be left to just be, in this one moment in time. 

After losing a partner and best friend, someone whom you share everything with, it’s hard to escape any thoughts about them no matter how busy you keep yourself. The difficult aspect of the quarantine was that I could not help thinking of how Anand and I would have experienced it together. Anand practiced social distancing in India, long before Rona came around, especially to avoid nosy villagers and relatives giving unsolicited advice.  Anand would have LOVED COVID Lockdown. We loved spending time together, just the two of us alone. Going for walks. Laying on the grass in the park reading. Cooking together. We once for a whole week parked ourselves on the sofa bed in front of the television binge-watching shows and movies while indulging in all kinds of snacks. Lockdown was something we would have both relished together. He would have been making witty comments about the covidiots and certain leaders, referring to them as ‘mooks,” as he often did when idiots were in sight. All this made me miss him bad.

With social distancing, there was no means of in-person support, like the grief support group meetings held by  AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) which I had attended during my visits to the U.S. I had yet to find one in Montreal and that too an anglophone one. Thankfully my weekly counselling sessions which I started  sometime after Anand’s suicide continued with my social worker (who I believe is heaven sent), from in-person meetings to over the phone. She has been vital in helping me process and navigate through my grief and traumas. I am ever so grateful for the counselling provided by the CLSC, which is a Quebec government run clinic/community health center. 

Counselling is great; however, I really missed the solace that came from being amongst a group of people where I didn’t have to explain or justify my grief, it was understood by individuals who had similar experiences. I had a need, a need for a tribe where my spoken and unspoken grief could  just be. Thus as the the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of all creation,”  I managed to find and create what I was looking for  in one of the most unlikely places. 

I was never much of an Instagram user. I initially only used it for work a few years back for marketing purposes . Shortly after Anand passed away I shared some posts where I openly shared my loss, pain, gratitude, my thoughts and experiences in general.

As I scrolled through the vast sea of images and captions, I started to find others like myself. I connected with individuals who had lost a loved one, a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling, a friend, a family member. I came across those who lost someone to suicide like myself and others who were widowed  too but not necessarily having lost their partner to suicide. 

At first, our exchanges were simply commenting on one another’s posts in support or expressing how what was shared, resonated with us. Eventually, it went from an open forum to direct messages, text messages, phone and video calls. We checked in on one another and reached out when we were having a bad day.

To be understood by someone we have never met, to find comfort in a stranger, especially when we find it difficult to open up with some of our closest family and friends, was unusual, yet a saving grace. We were able to be raw with our emotions, without judgement or having someone trying fix us, our circumstances or state of mind, without being made to feel like a broken record or stuck in a rut. We were able to say our loved ones’ names and share stories about them, sometimes with tears and sometimes with a smile, without the other feeling awkward.  We had unexpectedly found our grief tribe.

What has been prevalent is that we live in a grief averse society.  People either do not know how to cope with their own grief or are uncomfortable with seeing others grieve and are at a loss of how to support them. Everyone’s grief experience is unique which can often leave one feeling very lonely.  Hence those grieving  are left masking their true emotions and turn to these support groups almost as if going into hiding, where their grief is acknowledged and not placated. There is no timeline or limit to grief, it lasts as long as love does. It is not something you get over. It is something we live through and over time build the muscles to carry. 

Grief in the time of Corona was getting to me.  I needed more than the support of my family and friends during lockdown. I reached out to my Instagram friends and asked them individually if they would be interested in participating in a grief support group meeting over a video call. I was met with much enthusiasm. Trying to set a time to include everyone was tough, as we live in different continents and times zones. We’ve managed to have a few meetings so far and it has been great. Tears and laughter. Raw emotions shared candidly. Such a wonderful safe space.  The collage you see made by me along with this post,  includes a few of the people in our group with the loved one they have lost.  What would I have done without my Instagram Family during lockdown? In time, some of us plan to meet in person when it is safe to do so, kind of like a grief retreat!  Honestly, even though I’m still pissed off at him, I thank God for my earthly angels.