About All The Things

"The worst loss is always your loss. Only you know your loss and the meaning. Meaning takes time." 

-David Kessler, author, public speaker, and death and grieving expert

I knew it was coming. I told my wife only two weeks that it was coming. First, they blocked off the parking lots along the ocean and all the city and state park parking lots. Then came the county-wide order to shut down all the parks, the beaches, the ocean beyond the beaches that meant no surfing as well, and the walk path along West Cliff Drive that goes from Natural Bridges State Park to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

The order is only in place through the Easter holiday, for about one week, but that could change (and there are rumors that it might be extended). If you violate these orders, including loitering in groups in any public areas, you'll be fined $1,000. Seven people visiting Santa Cruz from another Bay Area city were loitering in a 7-11 parking lot and got just that: seven $1,000 dollar tickets.

All in the wake of preventing the further spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Limiting where we can go locally over a holiday weekend sucks, so we had to get creative. And bold. And break the rules. Maybe. During the weeks of shelter-in-place orders, we've been going outside daily as a family to get exercise and air and take our dog Jenny for a walk and a run. That's included going to a park or a beach or down the street to play tennis, ensuring our social distancing no matter where we go.

And now it's all locked down. However, no one said we couldn't go play on the playground at our girls' school. Sure, we're taking a chance, but there have only been a rare person or two cruising through. Each time we've gone I sign the Judas Priest song Breaking the Law in my head and out loud. My wife laughed but the girls don't recognize Dad's old school rock. When we go we play games like 2-touch, 4 square, shoot baskets and play the game HORSE. All while letting Jenny run around the open field.

The other day I fixed my gaze upon the playground structures beyond the black top -- the monkey bars, the zip line, the balance beams, the slides and a myriad of other high-energy activity contraptions set safely on a bed of bark. There was no one else around.

Out of all the things we've lost to date -- over 113,000 lives globally and counting and all those lives affected by the lives lost -- and all the personal freedoms, millions of jobs, and the millions of little things we did collectively every day around the world, I continued to stare at the playground and thought, This is the most loss our children have every experienced. Many of the things precious to them are gone. Some for now. Some for good. 

They've never experienced anything like this to date. There won't be any more recesses for the rest of the year, no more kids running and jumping and yelling and laughing. No more band for Bea. No more science camp that she'll never experience now as a 5th grader. No more after school kids in nature program for Bryce. No more sports or run for fun, a weekly running club they were both in. No more after school musical theater that they've both loved so much. No more playdates with friends, except virtually.

There's so much loss everywhere. So many divides have widened. Prior to this, everyone's lost something in their lives, and now it's compounded exponentially by this health care crisis. My wife and I have been listening to Brené Brown's latest podcast called Unlocking Us. We listened to the episode with David Kessler, a death and grieving expert, someone who's lost a child, which I cannot imagine. What struck me during the podcast was when David talked about why we shouldn't be comparing loss because, "The worst loss is always your loss." And that we need to grieve and have our grief acknowledged. Not for problems to be solved or silver linings to be pointed out, just listened to and acknowledged.

I just kept rolling that one around in my head and heart over the past few days, the worst loss is always your loss. And then when we went to play at the girls' school, we just ran around, and played, and laughed, and we were all okay, for those moments. Yes, our kids are grieving the loss of daily friend contact, the loss of school, the loss of nostalgic normal that already feels like decades ago. But we're also grateful that our kids are resilient, and the ultimate meaning of all this may never be needed. God knows us adults may struggle with the meaning of all this for decades to come.

We're all grieving now. We're grieving of a world lost. We're grieving about all the things. It's okay to grieve. Bless you and yours this holiday weekend and beyond.