Grief in the Abstract

I’ve been down this past week without understanding why. Then, someone asked me how I was doing with the situation in India, if I had any affected family members.

I didn’t know how to respond. No one close to me was in imminent danger, yet above and beyond my anxiety for my loved ones, I felt a palpable sense of grief. Every few hours, scrolling through the unending list of WA and FB posts by people desperately searching for oxygen cylinders, for ICU beds — friends of friends, relatives of relatives, all on the brink of losing or having already lost beloved parents, siblings, cousins, and in some cases…