A terrible curse on humanity

A second Covid-related death in the family.  He was my cousin's husband.

Covid is a curse on humanity, I often tell people.  Not only do loved ones die, but friends and family cannot gather to grieve either.  To die alone, and for the bereaved to grieve alone, is a terrible curse that none of us ever imagined.  But, that is the reality that my cousin and millions of others have to deal with in India, which is reeling from a Covid surge that does not seem like it will abate soon.

Meanwhile, the US CDC declared that those who are fully vaccinated can resume normal activities, for all practical purposes. 

This sets up a huge moral dilemma for people like me who live in the bubble that vaccinations have made possible, but watch in horror the conditions in India worrying all the time about the health and welfare of family and friends.

It is an unbearable pandemic guilt.  I am not the only one, of course, to feel that way.

“I have extreme feelings of guilt as someone who has most of my extended family in India,” said Neha Shastry, 30, who lives in Brooklyn. She has been shaken by the deepening Covid crisis there, as infections and deaths rapidly advance from big cities into rural areas. “It’s surreal to wake up a year later in New York City and see the streets full and businesses flourishing again, while my family is fearing for their lives.”

It is surreal.

My logical mind tells me that there is no reason to feel guilty.  And that's what psychologists remind us: "If you’re feeling guilty about things over which you have no control, the guilt you’re feeling is not warranted, the experts said."

In the old faith in which I grew up, we were advised to accept with detachment both the good and bad things that happen in our lives.  Humans that we are, detachment is not easy to practice.

I suppose modern life has conditioned us into thinking that we are in control of events that happen in our lives.  We forget that as much as life itself is an accident, whatever happens in life is also nothing but a series of fortunate and unfortunate accidents.  When that unfortunate event is a death that does not allow us to come together, it is a challenge to remain detached and philosophical.  But, such is life!