GONG GONG GONG GONG Hello,
This is Jacob Watson and this is a continuation in the series of teachings and meditations on grief that address the COVID-19 virus.
Welcome.
The topic here is memory grief,
What we remember of the past's losses.
Interwoven with these teachings on grief are coping strategies and silences for meditation,
Time for reflection and integration.
The numbers of illness and death continue to climb.
We are living with COVID-19 shattered and sheltered,
At least those of us lucky enough to have shelter.
The shattering brings grief.
Grief and the losses that bring it stay in our memory as long as they need to.
A natural process is underway.
Memory grief is my name for this process.
Our memory works.
We remember the people and events near and far because they had and have an impact on our lives.
They are important.
They made a difference.
They added substance and meaning to our lives.
Memory grief is a bittersweet process to ensure that we recall and honor our human emotional life,
The fact that we feel because we are human.
Memory grief makes sure we don't forget that even though sometimes we want to avoid it because we equate the feeling with discomfort.
We need to remember that to feel grief from our losses is natural.
We feel because we are humans experiencing natural life events and relationships.
These are ways we harvest meaning from our lives.
Our grief reminds us of what we love,
What and who we care about and often,
But not always who cares about us.
Memory grief has three distinct forms.
It can be simply remembering a small loss from an hour ago or it can be some event that happened weeks or months ago or it can be an event that happened years ago.
Firstly,
Something that happened recently,
You recall an action or interaction you had this morning,
Say,
Or last night.
It happened then and now it's over and done with or not.
But it had some significance,
So it is staying around in your memory.
It could easily be due to COVID-19,
Someone you lost or something you could not do because of the virus.
Perhaps it was a coffee date you couldn't have with a friend,
A meeting you enjoyed that was canceled,
A family event that had to be postponed.
It could be the sharp grief of a friend's illness or the grief from the death of someone close.
Among all the many multitudes of actions and interactions that happened recently,
The moment to moment,
Day to day fabric of your life,
This stands out.
Perhaps you know exactly why it stands out in your memory.
The event was perhaps unusual.
It involved a person who was a loved one,
Both of which give it energy,
Significance,
Import.
Yet,
However it came about or turned out,
It is finished for now.
We may wish it had been different,
But it is now in our past and thus a part of our memory.
We are aware of memory grief for something recent.
And our memory holds it up for our review,
Maybe even for our willing replay,
Or the other possibility.
Our memory holds it up with displeasure,
Even pain,
Our unwillingness to replay.
We wish it had not happened,
But it did.
Our memory grief is often flavored by avoidance.
We don't want the event to happen again,
In which case our memory grief works to help us not repeat the event if it's at all possible,
If it's in our control.
We feel this small impact,
Or large impact,
From today or yesterday,
And we are aware of remembering.
So now,
Let's have some silence for reflection and meditation on these quite recent memory griefs,
Today or yesterday.
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