Losing an Ex-Spouse

Abstract

The experience of loss and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to explore the connections between the individual and society through the use of the autoethnographic method. In writing this autoethnography, the authors confront questions about grieving as an individual and social process, and explore the importance of social norms in thinking about everyday events such as the death of a loved one. In this article, we discuss “grieving rules” as they pertain to “normal” incidences of death, and then explore what happens when extenuating circumstances such as a global pandemic make adherence to predictable norms difficult or impossible. While recent studies of grief related to the global pandemic focus on the survivors of COVID-19 victims, this study explores the social implications of losing a loved one during a pandemic when the death is not due to COVID-19. This autoethnography relies on grief experienced during the pandemic following a non-COVID death as a possible context for disenfranchised grief.