My mind is turning towards the grief that I believe we are all feeling now. Of course, for some it is more immediate as family members, friends and loved ones mourn some of the over 20,000 Americans and scores more of people worldwide who have died from this disease. All of us are touched. And there is the growing sense that the world we knew has been lost.
There is a very interesting article in the Atlantic that talks about grief from large-scale casualties such as wars. We are in a such an event now and the grief from that is with us and will stay with us for many years.
The following is taken from the article:
In her 1939 short story Pale Horse, Pale Rider, the writer Katherine Anne Porter describes the protagonist, Miranda, as she falls in love with a soldier named Adam while also falling ill with the 1918 influenza. Amid their fear of the disease, the pair also grieve their old way of life. “All the theatres and nearly all the shops and restaurants are closed,” Adam laments, “and the streets have been full of funerals all day and ambulances all night.”
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