Katrina died in May. Since then I, like so many of us, have had to learn a new way of grieving
In many ways this year has stripped us, however temporarily, of ourselves. Without the anchors of our normality – of friends, jobs, hobbies, of travel, of our wider families, of human touch and physical closeness – we have been forced to reconsider our places in a world we are unable fully to access. Some anchors, we have learned, we can readily do without; some we have longed to return for so long that in an instant we can be back to taking them for granted. I long to complain about the lack of legroom at a concert or the theatre, and am desperate to feel sick at the cost of a meal for a family of four in a restaurant. I viscerally pine for the frustration of waiting 10 minutes at a bar to be served. I’m counting the days until I can unthinkingly kiss my mum hello.
When my sister, Karina, died in May from coronavirus, I knew I had lost one of the anchors of my life for ever. But I was unsure how I would process it. How would her loss, in these unworldly circumstances, affect me?