Grief and sorrow are my topics for this leap year day. I have much to be sad about these days. I doubt that I am alone. A colleague introduced me to the book, The Eye of the Storm: Facing climate and social chaos with calm and courage, by Terry LePage. It has helped me articulate a response to the current realities: we are a nation in decline, a civilization in decline, and the climate situation is not fixable. In response, I need to let go of my ‘save the world mentality’ and idealism. As a product of my western culture, I am not particularly skilled at grieving. Instead, I keep moving. This is not entirely bad, as I get a lot done. However, I too need to make space for grief. Below the restless sleep, the anger with the current politics, and my impatience with others, I find sadness and grief.   

In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller starts his chapter on the five gates of grief with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.”

Personally, I have much to grieve about right now: these days my mother lays in a nursing home, mostly sleeping. Someone needs to feed her now. When she does speak it takes her a long time to form her words and thoughts. Often, she is confused. She is a slim shade of her former self. None of us want to remember her like this. Nursing home care is far from perfect and expensive. My sisters and I ask why she still holds on to life?

A sister’s partner of many years is suffering the end stages of cancer. Now enrolled in hospice, she is saying her goodbyes as she manages her pain. Sometimes observing another’s pain feels harder than surviving your own.

I also grieve at my own aging process, the body parts that don’t function like they once did. Thank God for my hearing aids, and the new nighttime driving glasses. Why did I wait so long?

Professionally, my career winds down. I am disappointed in what I didn’t accomplish and the brokenness of the health care system I was part of. I celebrate the energy and idealism of the next generation that I see in the classes I teach at Brown. But I feel guilty about the current state of health affairs and the many challenges they will face.

Personally and professionally, I grieve the recent death of Paul Wallace, MD – the General Practice UK Professor, not the race car driver, who lead the Foundation of Family Medicine in Palestine during most of the time I volunteered there. The son of Jewish parents, who suffered losses during the Holocaust, he was passionate about developing Family Medicine in Palestine. For a dozen years he led the work with an inspirational optimism. With the Gaza war, he initiated another effort to respond and support our colleagues. He will be missed, although at times, he could make me crazy.      

And finally, I pass through Weller’s third gate, sorrows for the world. It is hard to listen to the news, but I do watch PBS. I need to know, but don’t want too. How do I respond to the deep political divide in the US and the unfathomable disparity between the haves and have nots. How do I respond to the crisis of immigration and the brokenness of the system with no political will to take steps to improve it. Beyond the US, the difficulty of the Ukraine war and the African countries which are marked by continued civil strife.

Palestine is especially difficult. I check in with my colleagues and students and learn about their suffering. I send emojis and brief texts. I asked my sister, the Montessori principal, to send some web links to the three girls of a colleague (ages 3 to 10) who are off and on virtual school and often cannot go out to play due to the attacks in their northern West Bank city. Their Mom told me, “Things are really bad here.”  

Research colleagues and I have completed our 15 interviews with physicians in the West Bank and Gaza; they are painful to read. I worry that the Israeli trauma of October 7th seems to erase the devastation in Gaza and the increased horrors in the West Bank on the national stage in the US. West Bank doctors and pharmacists just tells us they are trying to work and they are attacked by the Israeli army.

When I meditate, I recognize my sadness about the the many injustices and pain around me. I allow myself to feel sorrow when I walk and swim. I continue to look for opportunities to share community settings where grief can be shared.

Alas, on a Zoom chat with my Catholic high school friend, who is now a Tibetan Buddhist, I was reminded of the transience of everything, even pain; the reality of suffering in the world; and the importance of doing what each of us can to alleviate suffering in our small sphere.

And we come full circle. Leaping into sorrow, remember that we are on holy ground. We try to bring a little light to those around us.