Kristina Lunde

The Lord is my strength and my song.
Psalm 118:14a

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March 30, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

COVID-19 Deaths: A Grief Dismembered

Dismembered grief might best describe grieving during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo by Jonathan Cooper/Unsplash

A son mourns the death of his mother, 3000 miles away. Travel quarantines and hospital restrictions kept him from saying goodbye in person. A phone held to her ear was too late; she never regained consciousness.

She begged her snowbird parents not to go south during the pandemic; they traveled anyway. Now, she flies cross-country to be with her mother as her father lies hospitalized, dying of COVID.

A wife races to the hospital after her husband arrives by ambulance. Blood clots, a heart attack, death. Many people assumed that he died of COVID.

A husband outlives his prognosis and fights valiantly to spend more time with his family, but dies of cancer during the COVID pandemic. COVID deaths dominate the media, but cancer continues to claim lives.

Grief, grief, and more grief. All grief hurts, and the current pandemic deeply impacts how people live, die, and grieve. Who could predict so much death—over half of a million deaths in this country alone—due to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease? In the United States, COVID deaths now exceed mortality rates due to other causes. Whether someone dies of COVID or another cause, this pandemic affects the mourning and grieving of all deaths. This coronavirus impacts specific aspects of grief: anticipatory, disenfranchised, and complicated.

Anticipatory Grief

Anticipatory grief offers the chance to acknowledge and gradually adjust to the upcoming loss and grief. For example, a terminally ill person and his family might prepare emotionally and logistically for the inevitable death. In contrast, COVID-19 robs people of time for anticipatory grief, as the disease may suddenly progress from cold symptoms to dangerously low oxygen levels, sometimes resulting in ventilator dependence and death before diagnosis.

COVID-imposed restrictions also impair anticipatory grief. With multiple household gatherings discouraged, extended families cannot gather at the bedside as their loved one dies. How can traditional rituals surrounding death and dying be implemented in the midst of shutdowns and quarantines?

Disenfranchised Grief

Kenneth Doka, a death education and counseling expert for over 30 years, wrote the book that defines disenfranchised grief as “not socially sanctioned, openly acknowledged, or publicly mourned.” The COVID-19 pandemic contributes to these aspects of disenfranchisement. Efforts to prevent virus transmission curtail or even prohibit public expressions of community grief or rituals focused on the dying family member. What about the sorrow and guilt people experience when they cannot host visitations, wakes, reviewals, or other mourning traditions to honor their deceased loved ones? Large funerals and food-serving receptions are viewed as virus-spreading events instead of valued as comforting family reunions. Funerals and memorial services are indefinitely postponed until after the pandemic, depriving mourners of public acknowledgment and spiritual community as they grieve alone.

Complicated Grief

What aspects of COVID disease and deaths have not complicated the process of grieving?! Whereas complicated grief used to be an ill-defined term in the clinical context, now Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD), categorizes complicated grief in the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5). Whether COVID-related emotional trauma persists and propels a person’s complicated grief into a PCBD diagnosis might not be evident until after the pandemic.

Dismembered Grief

The COVID pandemic may prevent anticipatory grief, result in disenfranchised grief, and further complicate grief. I call these pandemic effects dismembered grief, because COVID-related restrictions separate grieving people from their loved ones, cut off emotional and spiritual supports, and deprive loved ones of time together, both before and after death. Grieving during this time can feel lonely and disjointed. Socialization limitations, travel quarantines, solitary living, separation mandates, in-person events moved online—all of these lifestyle changes lead to what I identify as dismembered grief during the coronavirus chaos.

Comfort in Grief

How do we comfort those who grieve during this pandemic? In my experience, when grief interfered with eating, sleeping, and much of my life, I relied on others for emotional, physical, and spiritual support. These seven ideas help acknowledge, comfort, and support a grieving person, during this pandemic and beyond:

  • mention their loved one’s name
  • listen to them talk about their loved one
  • write them an encouraging note
  • talk/write about a memory of their loved one
  • drop off a meal
  • offer to help with one task: e.g. household chore, errand, event
  • ask what you can do for/with their kids: take them on an outing, give rides, teach them a skill, etc.

Helping with a specific task, or just sitting with a grieving person, provides more connection and assistance in an overwhelming situation than a vague offer of “call me if you need something.” The shock and trauma of a loved one’s death may block any ability to reach out for help. COVID-19 restrictions require creative problem-solving, but safe and relevant help will decrease the isolation of grief.

Note: If you are grieving, consider joining an online grief support group (e.g. GriefShare). For specific grief resources, contact your local faith community, counseling center, hospice program, or funeral home.

[Originally posted March 2021]

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: anticipatory grief, complicated grief, coronavirus, COVID-19, disenfranchised grief, dismembered grief, grief, GriefShare, pandemic

March 30, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Inside the Window: A Battle Against COVID

Inside the window, she battles COVID-19. One long day at a time.

That last phone conversation with my husband. Now I remember! Me coughing and hacking, as he suggested an emergency room visit because I might have coronavirus. Independent me—of course I said no. Until that next day, when I started sucking air like I was breathing through a coffee stir stick. Only then did I drive myself to the hospital. Did I call him when I was admitted?! Everything is such a blur now. What November day was that? How many days have I been here? The news reports describe how COVID-19 progresses from breathing problems to ventilator, and then to death. I am so scared. And tired . . .

Inside the window, she confronts COVID. Alone in her thoughts.

The nurse pointed to my husband, standing outside my ICU (intensive care unit) window. With the sun behind him, I recognized his profile. My personal strong man. I so wish I could see his face. Before this breathing tube kept me from speaking, I remember how he yelled at me from outside the window. I barely heard him through my Darth-Vader-sounding oxygen mask. He yacked on and on about memories of our honeymoon, family trips, and our special trip to California last year. How embarrassing: he was outside practically shouting about our personal life while people walked up the hospital sidewalk! Like they want to hear our litany of family vacations. But he confidently reminds me of our memories and keeps his promise to be there for me. This coronavirus thing, why can’t they let him inside to visit me?!

Inside the window, she faces an unknown battle against COVID.
Outside the window, he stands in his COVID vigil of love.

There he is at the ICU window again. My man. The one who thrilled me on that day so long ago when my friend and I hitchhiked in the city. Me, the small-town girl who planned to see the world. Him, the sun-bleached dude with the big smile. I can’t remember what I said when the guys picked us up, but I gave my usual smart-mouthed comment. The good-looking one didn’t shrink back from my sharp tongue, but was impressed with my humor and took it as a challenge. Like a comedy routine, we bantered back and forth: his heckling to my irreverence, his gentle mocking to my biting sarcasm. How I love his sense of humor! He still won’t stoop to my snarkiness, but he makes me laugh every time. Our secret to forty-plus years of marriage.

Inside the window, nostalgia comforts her in the struggle against COVID.
Outside the window, he stands in his COVID vigil of love.

I am tired and scared. The low whoosh of air flowing and the muffled pump sounds of the ventilator can be soothing, but I startle awake every time it alarms. Someone in head-to-toe blue paper with a clear windshield for eyes comes in to check the alarms. The same generic outfit, but this time it’s the nurse with the high ponytail bump. The tube in my throat keeps me from talking, but not from terror. She gently brushes my arm as she silences the alarm, telling me that she just updated my husband on the phone. Then she hands me the letter board. Of course, I could spell out my million questions, one stupid letter at a time, but that would take all day. How do I get this tube out of my throat? Will I ever breathe on my own again, or will I die connected to this ventilator?

Inside the window, she combats COVID. One ventilator alarm at a time.

There is my husband, outside the window again. What?! Where am I? Oh yeah. Still in the hospital, in the town where I worked, three hours from our home in the city. Still on this ventilator that keeps me alive. Every time they give me a trial to breathe on my own, I panic and can’t continue. Then they medicate me so the ventilator can do my work of breathing. The tall nurse gives me updates, not that I understand it all, but he explains more of what “the team” is doing and why. But no one answers the big questions: will I get better? Do they explain this to my husband?! Will coronavirus kill me? I’m tired. I ache. I need to sleep . . .

Inside the window, she drifts in and out, fighting for breath against COVID. Outside the window, he stands in his COVID vigil of love.

I have to remember . . . through this mental fog . . . past the alarms . . . about the people in blue. Wasn’t that him I saw, dressed head-to-toe in blue paper garb? Or was that a dream? The window was dark, so he wouldn’t be outside. How could he be inside this ICU at night?! Is it only in my hopes and dreams? But I remember his voice, his outline, his presence. So real.

The next day, my “morning numbers” were surprisingly good; the team disconnected me from the ventilator for hours in a breathing trial. Some days later, they pulled the tube out and gave me an oxygen mask. For the first time in months, I talked with my husband on the phone. (Oh, how we used to take our daily phone conversations for granted! Never again.)

I used all my energy to speak, one breathy word at a time. “I . . . am . . . so . . . glad . . . to . . . be . . . alive.”

Inside the window, she finds her voice against COVID.

Lord Jesus, please be with her inside that window and battle the COVID-19 virus for her. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
[Originally posted January 2021]

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: coronavirus, COVID-19, hospital, love, marriage, ventilator, vigil, window

March 30, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

A Christmas Gift of Morning Glory

After being on lockdown for months, relegated to working and living in her apartment during coronavirus chaos, she decided to buy some seeds in April of 2020. A packet of morning glory seeds brought a creative gardening spark to her little home. She filled terracotta pots with potting soil, pushed seeds into black dirt, and positioned pots on the window ledge. Having escaped the northern winters, she knew there would be no cold air in this urban apartment window. Frost layers did not surround the lower window edges. No cold breezes leaked around the window frame. In this southern climate, her plants did not face frost danger. She did not miss that northern chill; instead, she enjoyed the warmth and sunshine of this new climate.

The new job took her thousands of miles south of her previous position, which also meant leaving family and friends behind. Her arrival in the southern climate timed with the simultaneous COVID lockdown of that state in mid-March of 2020. Nine months later, she still works solely from home, conferences online with her team, and has not met her boss in-person. With restaurants and museums closed, she postpones her exploration of new surroundings. She joined a church and other online groups, but meeting people and making new friends remains a big challenge given the COVID restrictions.

For the first time in her quarter century of life, she could not spend Christmas with family or friends. Knowing that she could not see them in person, she arranged online get-togethers. She zoomed, skyped and Duo-phoned for virtual visits with family and friends. This pandemic Christmas proved to be strange and unique—definitely one to be remembered.

She loved her apartment. The new job offered great challenges and new experiences, although COVID restrictions resulted in different job responsibilities from the original posting. Although grateful for an enjoyable, steady job, she longed to explore and make new friends in the area, pursuing those positive aspects of a cross-country move that she had anticipated. And being so far from loved ones with no option of travel felt heart-wrenching at times, despite the new adventures of this pandemic season.

Rounding the corner into her living room that Christmas morning, a purple color on the window ledge caught her eye. She ran over and looked. There in one of the flower pots bloomed a symmetrical five-point star in gorgeous shades of purple. A morning glory had blossomed into full flower overnight.

A Christmas morning glory! An exquisite gift from the Creator Himself, sent on the anniversary of His son’s birth. In the midst of her solitude, God displayed His creative beauty. Just as God personally and miraculously entered that stable millennia ago, and later placed a large star in the Eastern sky, he now surprised one of His children with a beautiful star in her apartment window.

Lord God, let the beauty of your creation be recognized as your gift of love to those who seek you. In this season of remembering Christ’s birth, may people all over this world be drawn to you. Let those who seek, find answers in your Word. May they recognize your provision and protection in everything from small flowers to big miracles in the midst of COVID disease, pandemic lockdowns, and coronavirus chaos. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

[Originally posted December 2020]

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: Christmas, coronavirus, COVID-19, morning glory, pandemic

March 30, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Christmas Origami

There once was a young lady on lockdown;
COVID-19 kept her housebound.
With a package from her mommy,
She crafted origami,
Turned mint wrappers to ornaments all-around.

[Originally posted December 2020]

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: Christmas, coronavirus, origami, ornament

March 30, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Outside the Window: A COVID Vigil of Love

Outside the window, he stands. Alone in his COVID vigil of love.
The ICU Window

The vigil became his new routine: park in the hospital lot, walk across the grass, and take his place at the window. On the other side of the ground-floor window, his wife fights COVID-19 from an ICU bed. She contracted the novel coronavirus after exposure from a friend. The elderly friend recovered after several days of a mild case of COVID.

COVID-19 first made his wife achy and chilled. Working three hours away from their home, she initially complained of fatigue; days later, her breathing changed. He noticed her ragged breathing on their nightly phone call. “Please go in to get checked out. You might have COVID. At least get a test.” By the time she checked into the local emergency department, she could not catch her breath and felt like she was drowning. So began the weeks of hospitalization and isolation. The contagious nature of COVID-19 restricted any and all visitors; only staff in personal protective equipment were allowed in the ICU.

Outside the window, he stands. Alone. A COVID vigil of love.

While she was on oxygen and sitting up in bed, he stood outside the window. He drove three hours each way to visit, promising her that he would come every day. At first, they texted by phone; then the COVID battle left her no energy to hold the phone. He spoke loudly, almost yelling through the window in his attempts to communicate with her directly. People walking to and from the hospital could not help but overhear his words. He spoke of memories, nostalgic recollections of trips from their honeymoon to last year’s California trip. “Remember the goats at the Air B&B?” he reminded her. He smiled at the memory of her instant love for those crazy goats and how that trip sparked her retirement dream to buy a hobby farm with goats.

Outside the window, he stands, keeping his promise to visit daily.

The six-hour daily drive was exhausting, so he rented a nearby place to stay during the week. The doctor’s assessment revealed significant lung damage and a recommendation to place a tube into the lungs. “Putting the tube into her airway and connecting the ventilator will decrease her work of breathing. The ventilator will transport air to her lungs, and save her effort and energy.” But she thought the ventilator was a death sentence, so she refused to be intubated.
After hearing about her mother’s fears, their daughter drove up from Chicago with her two small children. “Mom, please. The doctor says the vent will help your breathing. Please, Mom! My kids need their grandmother!” After his daughter and grandkids joined him at the window during that visit, he returned alone the next day. A week later, his son also made a visit to the window.

Outside the window, he stands. Alone again.

In the bleak November of 2020, the hospital grounds looked as cold and frozen as he felt. Numb to his sacrifice, he visited every day for his window vigil. She was on a ventilator, unable to speak. They had always talked every day. Years ago, he traveled overseas for his job. Regardless of time differences or the high cost of overseas calls, he and his wife spoke daily.

Now on the ventilator, she could not speak. He ached inside, missing that sweet voice, that sharp-witted humor that had initially attracted him to her. He nostalgically remembered that cute 20-something girl, wisps of hair framing her face, her ponytail swiping back and forth as they flirtatiously bantered. That wise woman still bantered with him, her intellect and humor always drawing out his kinder, gentler humor. Like their differing senses of humor, their partnership was a synergy of unique characteristics. From those early days of courtship and through their 43+ years of marriage, he loved her. That love and appreciation for his wife grew as she became mother to their two precious children, now grown. These empty nest years were a chance to savor their time together, just the two of them. How he missed her. The window—and the coronavirus that isolated her—created a painful barrier between them.

Outside the window, he stands, keeping his vows: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

During his daily phone conversations with the nursing staff, he reminded them to tell his wife that he was there, standing outside the window, as close as he could get. The staff were hard to tell apart in their identical uniforms of personal protective equipment. Some of the day shift nurses, the most frequent visitors, he learned to distinguish. The kind one had a high ponytail bump under her blue cap; she always greeted his wife with a soft touch on her arm. The tall nurse walked straight to the machines, directing his eyes to the IV (intravenous medications) stands first. Her mask always moving, the older nurse was either singing or talking. He was glad that his wife could listen to something other than alarm bells and pump noises.

Outside the window, he stands alone, supporting his COVID-ravaged wife.

Weather: sunny and 72 degrees. Forty-eight degrees, cloudy with rain. Fifty-four degrees and drizzling. Snow flurries and 37 degrees. The only thing that changed was the Midwest weather. He kept his vigil outside the ICU window while she lay motionless in bed. In the mornings, the nurse let the sedation wear off in preparation for the assessment of spontaneous breathing, or weaning trial. Without sedation, his wife could try breathing on her own with the tube still in place. Sometimes she would wiggle her toes or move her hands.
To see her move, even such a tiny gesture, was a glimpse of hope through the window. She was understanding instructions and her limbs worked. His wife was still there! The medical staff did not offer encouragement about the weaning trials; they continued to speak of fatigue, COVID lung damage, and fluid noted on the chest X-rays. But he had seen her move, and for that sign of life he was grateful.

Outside the window, he stands alone, keeping his COVID vigil of love.

Lord Jesus, please meet him at the window. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
[Originally posted November 2020]

Filed Under: coronavirus Tagged With: coronavirus, COVID-19, hospital, love, marriage, ventilator, vigil, window

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