Learn to Live Again

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 4.5 million lives so far throughout the world. These sudden, unnatural, and unexpected deaths have led to complicated grief reactions as families did not get time to prepare for death. I describe the experience of my family in India during the disastrous second wave of the pandemic. The experience of many such families of COVID-19 casualties is like a horror story that will continue to scare them each day of their life. These families have already suffered a serious and long-lasting harm and are at greater risk of suffering from prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, emotional distress, adult separation disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder for a long period of time. Creating support groups, empowering primary-care physicians to help and counsel their patients, providing them access to cognitive behavioral therapy, help with opening up and venting out some of their feelings, and training to develop resilience are some of the measures to help our grieving patients.