Thread by @monaeltahawy

I've been going out the most since the pandemic and I don't know if this is just what I want to see or if it's actually happening but so many people are kinder, softer, freer with compliments and kind words.

I wrote about grief literacy and I wonder if this is what we're doing.

Those of us who did not die must prepare to take our individual grief out into the world, find our place in communal mourning & nurturing, whisper to each other’s hearts “We know you’re strong.Look at what you survived. You can be soft here, we’ve got you” feministgiant.com/p/essay-some-o…

The title of my essay is from the poet June Jordan who asked soon after 9/11: “I realized that regardless of the tragedy, regardless of the grief, regardless of the monstrous challenge, Some of Us Have Not Died. Some of us did NOT die…And what shall we do, we who did not die?”

An international group of death studies practitioners and scholars from several countries and disciplines has coined the concept Grief Literacy, which means “the capacity to access, process, and use knowledge regarding the experience of loss.” #GriefLiteracy

Loss, as they explain, does not only occur in response to death; any loss can cause us to grieve. “So much is being lost in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic. We have lost our routines and many freedoms. Many people have lost their jobs..."

"...We have lost the ability to visit freely with one another and, in some cases, to go outside our homes.And some people have lost their lives while others have lost the opportunity to be with people who are dying or grieving,” Dr @SusanCadell one of the researchers, writes.

They offer several scenarios for what a “grief literate society” would look like: it would incl grief education in curricula, starting in junior levels; it recognizes & acknowledges grief from non-death losses & pet deaths,and doesn't rank those losses vis-a-vis human death loss

People in grief literate society would understand & accept differences in grieving styles in terms of gender, race & culture, they'd feel comfortable to talk about their own loss experiences & to ask about loss experiences of others instead of avoiding subject/ showing discomfort

“Grief often doesn’t need to be professionalized. About 10 percent of people need professional services. Everyone, however, needs kindness," Dr. Mary Ellen Macdonald

And that kindness begins with ourselves. feministgiant.com/p/essay-some-o… #GriefLiteracy

Part of our grief literacy must include pronouncing once and for all that whatever “normal” was is dead and buried. Only the most privileged and the least affected will insist on “going back to normal.”
#GriefLiteracy

We must walk—emerge from the pandemic, not regress to “normal”—and talk--talk to our grief. We must speak it because as with any language, the more you use it the more fluent you become. feministgiant.com/p/essay-some-o…