He Claimed Our Grief: And We Began to Heal

It was as if four years of toxins were slowly being drained from my body and soul, four years of accusations, vulgarities, lies, mocking, children in cages, belittling – an incessant boasting culminating in an assault on our Capitol.

Biden’s first public act, actually the night before he was officially sworn in as our 46^th President was devoid of pomp, of fist-bumping victory. He didn’t begin with himself.  He began by acknowledging others.

He did not claim the throne.  Rather, he claimed our grief.  His first stop: not Blair House but the Lincoln Memorial.  And he spoke not of himself or his victory, but of those lost to COVID.

Biden’s first public act was not an act of policy or program, but a solemn act of healing.  The person singing “Amazing Grace” there with him was not an opera star but a nurse, Lori Marie Key, who had calmed dying COVID patients and her overworked fellow nurses with her singing.  Biden’s words to her reflected his deep familiarity with grief and loss, “If there are angels in heaven, they are… nurses.”

Our outgoing president boasted about how many had attended his inauguration.  Biden quietly honored those not there, the 400,000 victims of COVID.

Biden did this at sunset at the Lincoln Memorial, which was framed by the Reflecting Pool.  There were no trumpets or drums, roaring crowds, or soaring aircraft.  Only silence: not the silence of dread or emptiness, but the silence of reverence, of awe, a worshipful silence of remembrance for those who had died –the first step in healing. 

And so on a cold, clear night, the sun setting behind the Lincoln Memorial, lights flanking the Reflecting Pool now lit, the nation began to heal.

The next day our new poet laureate Amanda Gorman concluded with light: “There will always be light/If only we’re brave enough to see it/If only we’re brave enough to be it.”