Bill and I count Tammy and Pat McLeod some of our closest friends. Chaplains at Harvard and working with Cru for more than 35 years, they wrote Hit Hard: One Family’s Journey of Letting Go of What Was—and Learning to Live Well With What Is as they dealt with their 16-year-old son Zach’s traumatic brain injury. Little did they know that the whole world would experience ambiguous loss in this year of pandemic. Since then they’ve hosted Covid-19 Conversations to help people name and process the types of losses they’re experiencing. One of the most powerful aspects of their book is the honest and very different way they dealt with grief as a couple. In this year of loss and loneliness, fear and fighting, divisions and denials, it comforts me to read the ways they’ve struggled and their faith and marriage survived.
Below Tammy shares about what she’s lost and found during this year, and what she hopes will continue. Pat shares about the loss of “home” in a quarantine.
Lost and Found in the Pandemic and Hopes for the Future
In a recent large group Zoom meeting with Harvard students, I asked them to find two empty containers, labeling one Lost and the other Found. In small groups, we took five minutes silently to write our losses on slips of paper and place them in our Lost jar. We did the same with our Found jar, and then we shared with each other what we wrote—ambiguous loss made tangible.
I was introduced to the term ambiguous loss—having and not having—after my sixteen-year-old son suffered a brain injury playing football and became severely disabled for life.
One exercise that helped me during those early days of my son’s injury was to write out what I lost and what I still had. Reflecting on this question during the pandemic helped me once again. I started by listing my losses.
What I lost: giving scheduled talks, traveling to see adult children, attending conferences where I would see colleagues and friends, serving in a South African township, extending hospitality to college students and friends, ministering to students in person, worshipping in person, rowing, lifting at my gym, and attending social events with friends.
My losses weren’t as severe as others who lost loved ones, jobs, financial stability, and more through the pandemic. For these people I mourn and pray. Nevertheless, I learned through the loss of my son that comparing losses doesn’t help but grieving losses does. I listed and grieved my losses, and then I reflected on what I still have during the pandemic.
What I still have: meeting with God daily, speaking about ambiguous loss, talking with family members, ministering to students, worshipping, and attending conferences online, meeting people and exercising outdoors.
In addition, I listed new things I had found.
What I found: fewer events and less driving has been a blessing, more time to care for myself in a pandemic has been life-giving, people all over the world can volunteer to lead student ministry since everything is online.
In addition to reflecting on questions above, I enjoyed thinking about what I hope to see when the pandemic is over.
What I Hope: that I am a more compassionate person having learned how to listen as people grieve their losses, that I have found ways to serve in the city to help make sure those with fewer resources receive care, that I remember joy is not based on circumstances, what I possess, or what I have the freedom to do, that I will continue to be in nature every day since God’s beauty strengthens me, that my daily prayer walks with my husband continue, that I still linger at the dinner table instead of jumping up to clean the dishes, that I remember how important family relationships are to me.
What I Hope Communally: that we as a country are more attentive—that we see what is happening and act on what we see, that the peaceful protests of this year lead to change; that we confess sin—our own and those of our nation—including systemic racism, that we will make reparations where needed, that we will share power, and that the divisions in our country will be healed.
The Ambiguous Loss of “Home”
I thought I knew a lot about ambiguous loss. My wife and I co-authored a book about it—about our own experience of both “having” and “not having” our son, Zach, after he was traumatically brain injured playing football. We have lived with, experienced, studied and even taught about ambiguous loss.
But when the pandemic hit and ambiguous loss became ubiquitous, I felt my own understanding of ambiguous loss grow in new dimensions of life. Perhaps the most unexpected (albeit mundane) dimension of ambiguous loss that I have experience and that will likely stay with me when the pandemic passes is the ambiguous loss of home.
Our home is still here, but it is not here the way it once was. Prior to the pandemic, home was a haven, a resting place from work. It was a shelter where I could relax, connect, and converse with the people I love most over a warm, home-cooked meal.
When COVID hit, our homes became our office, classroom, church, conference room, gymnasium, counselor’s chair, and zoom background.
Prior to the pandemic, I rarely worked from home. Even when I had to spend the majority of my day on my computer, I was too distracted at home to get much done. I was too attracted to the many indulgence I could enjoy, play with, or eat, the many beds on which I could nap, the many spaces I could organize, clean up, or fix.
But now that my home has become my office, I no longer have “home” the way I once had it—the haven, the refuge, the place to unwind. The dilemma has reversed itself. Before I couldn’t work at home, now I can’t rest there.
I anticipate that as we emerge from this pandemic, more and more of the way we work will happen from home in front of screens on our computers and smart phones. It will require intentional and creative energy to preserve a home space (temporally and physically) for rest, where we can cease striving, be quiet, be still, turn off our screen, tune out the noise of the world and attend to the quiet speaking voice of God, as well as the concerns and issues on the mind of my wife and kids.
Two practical steps that have helped me grow my resilience to the ambiguous loss of home through COVID-19 that I plan to continue as we emerge from the pandemic include:
1) Initiate regular conversations with my wife Tammy (and our kids) about our rhythm of lives: How are we going to observe Sabbath rest each week? When are we shutting down each day? How will we shut down? How can we protect rest in each other’s schedules?
2) How can we structure our home living spaces so that they can be more conducive to meeting with God, communing with loved ones and resting? How can we do this and still create a productive workspace in our home?
Pat and Tammy are available for speaking (by zoom and hopefully in person later this year) and in your own journey with ambiguous loss. You can contact them through their website, Facebook, and Instagram. You can order Hit Hard in print or audiobook.