A staggeringly, tragically large number of people are losing their grandparents right now “thanks” to COVID-19 — and that’s a loss that, for most, both stings and sticks with you. Our grandparents are more than just our mom’s mom, our dad’s dad, or what have you, after all — when they’re still with us, they represent a living connection to our family’s past; to the past in a general sense. And when that’s gone — when they’re gone — so is a big part of where we’ve come from, and an even bigger part of what made us who we are.

There’s no “solution” to grief, of course, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the concept of “closure” is a lie — but that doesn’t mean we can’t move forward with the lessons out grandparents taught us, indeed the grounding they gave us, never far…