Losses come in all shapes and sizes. No matter what, when they arrive on our doorstep, something changes. 

Changes might be very tangible and present. 

The absence of someone dear to us, for instance. The ending of a relationship where the person is still living, just no longer living with us. The ending of a job – tomorrow, we won’t be getting up and going to work like we once did. 

Of course, there have been much bigger, more prominent losses in our lifetimes. Things that have happened that create a community or even global sense of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ The feeling of where you were in that instant. 

Here are a couple that come to mind: 

The Challenger Space Shuttle tragedy. 

I was working at the time for Butler University. Prior to my job there, I had been a classroom teacher. Like so many others, I’d been following the process of fellow educator Christa McAuliffe. My boss and some other staff gathered to watch the launch because McAuliffe was about to become the first educator in space. Only that’s not what happened. I remember the confused silence when the shuttle exploded. I remember how stunned I was – and the people around me were too. What I don’t remember is the ways that people processed the grief of the moment or the subsequent days. Recently, someone I know was mulling over this very question as it relates to students. How were children – who were watching from classrooms all over North America, supported in their grief? 

9\11 

Where were you on 9/11? What were you doing? What do you remember? Shock. Fear. Uncertainty. Air travel being completely shut down. My parents were visiting my sister in Seattle. They kept their rental car and drove back to Indiana even though they were retired and had no immediate things to attend to. There are so many stories of that day and the subsequent days. For a time, grief had arrived and was out in the open. People helped one another and were vulnerable with one another. For some who live in NYC or who lost loved ones, grief remains as an ever-present part of life. This experience was life-transforming, leading some to new work, to enlist in the military, to find ways to make a difference in the world. How did 9/11 affect you? 

The Covid Pandemic 

This is another big, cultural, and global moment of ‘before’ and ‘after’. Global responses. Deaths across generations, ethnicities, community economics, and more. Public debate about the disease or the efforts behind creating a vaccination – some of which continue today. Within the global and national experiences, there were and remain aspects of grief and loss. Certainly, the loss of life. But also, what can be unrecognized as a sense of loss – how we live, work, play, and spend time in our communities. Students who didn’t get to go through graduation. Children who attended school virtually while their parents worked from home. Exhausting levels of caregiving of all kinds. What it means to attend a large gathering of people. Even in the face of disagreement over the impacts of this illness, there are some struggling to regain their health. There are others who must continue to be vigilant. And there are those who maintain that this isn’t real. Where does this experience touch your life? How are you dealing with your sense of loss? 

All these things and more lead us into the choppy waters of change, loss, fear, and doubt. Underneath these feelings, grief is lurking. 

I often wonder if we could be more present in our sense of grief. Healthy mourning would help us openly deal with our feelings about these events and other day-to-day losses. If we shared in the experiences of learning to mourn big life challenges, could be transformative for how we handle all of life’s challenges big or small. 

Seeking support through a life transition coach can assist you in knowing more about your own grief as well as living into a future beyond the loss you are in now. 

Reach out if you would like to participate in a discovery session. Or consider signing up for the new 45-minute, 1:1 micro-coaching Live the Questions session. See the full description at www.watershedmomentscoaching.com.