Remembering my father: the unique pain of Covid grief
When Dria Hsu lost her father to Covid-19 in March last year, her world turned upside down; but so did the world around her.
By Dria Hsu
Last year was the year that grief became my new normal. It’s hard to describe the feeling: it started out as a deep sadness, turning eventually to numbness, mixed in with a fluctuating anxiety.
I lost my father to Covid-19 earlier this year, just around the time when America was first starting to take the pandemic seriously. He was a frontline worker, a family physician, and he was the first medical worker to die in South Florida. He passed away on March 24. My dad had always been a hero in my eyes and to all his loved ones. Now the whole country saw him that way too.
They say life is not the same after a loss, and that was especially true for me. With the sudden lockdown, mask-wearing and working from home, life felt very different in general. Of course, going through grief at all is hard, but there is something about going through it during a pandemic that feels especially challenging. With the type of year we’ve had, it can sometimes feel like the importance of what happened has been minimised, or the experience somehow devalued.
The world does feel empathetic, but then there’s a timeline, you know? Everyone moves on and you have to move on too. Especially with how long this pandemic has lasted. People are sick of it and just want it to end. Which poses a challenge when you’re not ready to move on yet.
I watched Joe Biden speak at the Covid memorial service and there was a quote that stuck out to me: “To heal, we must remember.” I remember at first when people found out about my dad, everyone felt so overly sensitive; and now it’s just like one of those things that...they kind of forget. You can sense the uncomfortable atmosphere it creates, it’s such a conversation killer. It’s something that even the people closest to me, who have been very good to me throughout this time, can’t fully understand. Loss creates this disconnect. Because it’s dark, it’s powerful. No-one wants to deal with it on a daily basis.
So the world goes to move on, but for me it’s too soon; it hasn’t even been a year. I know I’ll get there, but it’s a process I have to go through and it will take time. I have to accept that I won’t always be my best self. And often, having to explain that to people is the most exhausting part. That’s why watching that memorial service was comforting. Biden lost his youngest son to cancer, and I knew that he would be able to empathise with how hard and long it is to heal from the loss of a loved one.
Overall my grieving has been very lonely. One of my friends is currently going through a similar thing – her dad passed away suddenly after contracting Covid – and I didn’t know the words to comfort her, even though I’ve been through the same thing. Every grief is different. And is a lonely experience.
You tell people to look after themselves and to just feel it all, to embrace the pain and the process; but then as a society we contradict ourselves. The world around us doesn’t give us enough time to do any of that. There’s a pressure to move on quickly, which is so draining. You have to constantly be managing your emotions, to adapt to what is socially acceptable at this point in time [Covid-19], on top of trying to go through the ‘healing process’.
I was put on antidepressants shortly after my father’s death to help me deal with the pain and the anxiety, and I guess you could say life turned back to normal a little bit. And yet the feeling of grief never went away. If anything, it hid under the surface and soon reemerged as anger. Rather than retreating, my grief was growing more complex and harder to control.
Then my antidepressants ran out — which was tough, to say the least. For at least two weeks after taking my last pill I became weirdly out of sorts, with surprisingly strong physical ailments. I was nauseous, I was dizzy, I was foggy, I was irritable, I was hurting, I was vomiting, I was sweating, and generally just feeling awful. I also developed overwhelmingly real fears of accidental pregnancy or of contracting Covid. One night I googled antidepressant withdrawal symptoms to see if my ailments were in any way related, and – lo and behold! – I found that it is in fact a very common issue. All the symptoms matched up, even the “flu-like” ones.
It was mind-blowing to discover that you can get physical withdrawal symptoms, like the flu, just from tapering off your antidepressants incorrectly. I realised I should have asked more questions about how these drugs would impact my physical state, especially if I were to stop taking them, because then maybe I would have decided to try another alternative before that last resort.
However, I can see why my physician didn’t warn me about this, because it’s just so common to prescribe these kinds of drugs [over 1 in 10 US citizens are on antidepressants]. Of course, I could have just researched it myself. But then again I never had to — my dad was always my walking encyclopaedia for anything medical. He was always my doctor, and I had gotten so used to that.
Now I am taking them again, and I have to admit, they are helping. Today, for example, I got out of bed, put on clothes, didn’t stay in my pyjamas...those little things are very significant to me. The difference can appear subtle to someone who hasn’t experienced depressive feelings before, but who knows how I’d be right now if I wasn't on them? I know friends who are using antidepressants too, because they’re struggling with everything that’s happening in the world.
As hard as it was, I feel like the last year was a lesson, not only for myself, but for all of us in how to start prioritising mental health and the way we relate to one another. Everything and everyone is connected and interdependent. We need to be more mindful and considerate of each other, on both a personal and a global level, taking care of ourselves and being patient and caring towards our friends. Only then will we be able to put these dark and confusing times behind us.
Right now I imagine my dad is sitting right next to me, smiling like the highly evolved buddha he was. I can feel his warm presence as I type these words, echo his beliefs, and remember his legacy. My dad took every opportunity to tell me how proud he was of me and who I am, and to be proud of where I came from. He will always live on as a part of me. I love you dad.
Below is the link to my dad's online obituary: his life story.
