I’ve never experienced a year like this. I’ve experience grief before, but it’s different each time. There is no map.
According to the Jewish calendar (and the school calendar), it’s almost a new year. One thing that hasn’t changed is that I’m still a terribly inconsistent blogger. All the places that are familiar to me are also seemingly unchanged, like this view of the South China Sea. Nothing though is the same and it can’t ever be again.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed us in ways that we aren’t yet be aware of and also in ways that we are. I lost my mother in April. In Judaism this puts me in a new category of people (mourners) with new obligations that I certainly didn’t wish to be in.
With my mother’s passing, I’ve been welcomed by friends into the “loneliest club in the world.” There are also, of course, smaller losses too that we experience each day such as the loss of the ability to travel, to hug friends, or to go to Synagogue.
I am starting this blog over because I need a new start and we don’t get a do-over in many things in life. I’m allowed one at this.