"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." –C. S. Lewis

You know, it does. Grief does feel a lot like fear. That is rather surprising at first. But then, after a bit of reflection, it sort of isn’t surprising at all.

Loss is world-changing. It changes the lay of the land. Sometimes for an individual and sometimes for a larger community, society, or people. It moves the known touchpoints. The sense of place and direction. It disrupts our sense of what should be and what could not – should not – happen. Happen here or happen there. Happen now – in this time and in our place.

The maps we thought we had captured what was – where the edges, cliffs, uncharted lands, stormy seas, as well as the assumed safe and familiar spaces are suddenly redrawn. Shuffled about in ways we don’t really understand. The scale changes. And all that seems to make nothing certain. And that, in turn, is fearful indeed.

If we have lost one thing (or have a sense we might have since we can’t find it where it has always been – in the forms we thought it would always have), that opens the possibility of more loss. Unpredictable loss and unwanted change in things we considered fundamental to who we are and where we were heading – the hoped-for future. And that possibility unsettles. It frightens.

And then what?

Probably for a time, there is some form of stasis. Well, because grief feels a lot like fear. And neither feel much like hope. Neither provides much sense of direction since the known world and the map forward have changed and are now mostly unfamiliar. Perhaps even painful to consider.

But we have come to know changed worlds before. We have managed to feel grief and fear and yet find our way back to hope often enough. And, we have helped those close to us and further away do so too. It is kind of what makes us who we are at our best.

Isolation and stasis have their own power. Yet, it doesn’t take much reflective imagination to recognize that those around us each day (as those living lives on other parts of the planet) are doing things that speak to us at deep levels even though doings are so seemingly commonplace – lunch, caregiving, laughter, the challenges and joys of each day of life and so much more. Commonplace things are the important things in the end because they are common – a foundation we have in common – a foundation strong enough to support us as we.

What has always allowed us to face the fear of navigating a new world that we did not seek is the ability to recognize that the character of any place and time depends entirely on what each individual it comprises of does each moment of each day. Regular old “us” people (there are no “them” people – other than those we imagine as such for a while in a changing pattern until they are once again “us” people) deciding one act at a time to make the world kinder, caring, loving, forgiving, braver, and wiser. Choices to focus on learning about each distinctive other that we encounter, expanding understanding, and … well, allowing the world we are helping to shape to have a much bigger place for hope and joy (and why not a lot more silliness and laughter too).

Anyway, regardless of grief and fear having its impact in many ways and in many places, we must walk ahead together, one step at a time, to co-create 2025 with hope ascending and the possibilities expanding.

Joyce Feucht-Haviar, University Senior International Officer, CSUN; Dean, Tseng College, CSUN

Main image: Novae Insulae, 1540 by Sebastian Münster