Grief and Crisis: Reacting to a Gutted Landscape
My mother died less than a month ago. My reaction to this election is surely inflected by my grief, but it’s all such a dull, aching morass that it’s difficult to understand or disentangle. I keep alternating between wishing I could be comforted by my mother, and feeling relief that I don’t have to comfort her, that I don’t have to watch her see and live this destigmatization of white supremacy, this gleeful assault on the dignity of women. She felt the suffering of marginalized people so deeply, and often despaired that there was so little she could do to help. She did what she could. She volunteered regularly at homeless shelters and with refugee populations. But she was disabled by severe mental illness and didn’t have strong networks of people to help and encourage her, and I know she felt lonely in her efforts and disheartened by the enormity of the need.
I am not disabled, and I am blessed with large networks of friends. We — especially white folks — need to step the fuck up. It’s past time. We have failed to protect the vulnerable. Donate, show up, figure out how to change hearts and minds. The first two are easy, the last one is going to take some serious work and ingenuity, and I’m not sure where to start. I feel daunted by the amount of emotional labor this will take. Did I lie in bed all morning because my mom is dead, or because the world is so terrifying and disappointing? I don’t know. Probably both.
