I don’t think I was the closest student to my college counselor, Miss Rasha. I didn’t spend most of my breaks at her office nor did I share my deepest thoughts with her. But I knew that I could if I wanted to, and that made all the difference. Her delicate soul matched the sincerity of her words, and she had the power to make me feel as though I had the strength of a mountain, even when I felt weak. She gave me the confidence in my decisions even when I felt uncertain about their outcomes and made my day with a sarcastic comment every once in a while. I knew that I could visit her office with the intention of handing in a document or asking a quick question and leave it feeling light hearted and hopeful. She didn’t give motivational speeches or plant a gold star on your forehead to make you feel better. Instead, she smiled at you with her deep, twinkling eyes and kind face, pointed to the chair opposite her and said, have a Lotus biscuit, won’t you?

About six months ago, on a morning where I had invested quite a bit of my time preparing a flavorsome avocado egg toast for breakfast, a friend of mine texted me the news. Miss Rasha had passed away. I had lost the mentor who had brought me closer and closer to NYU Abu Dhabi, the person whose admiration of this institution made me more certain of my decision to apply and whose enthusiasm towards me attending NYUAD was contagious. It felt as though the words of my friend’s text message were challenging me to disprove them. They were black, solid, unchanging. My first instinct was to ask when and where the funeral would be held, only to be harshly reminded that there won’t be one amid the pandemic. I spent the day feeling helpless and heartbroken. Avocado toast hasn’t tasted the same since .

In Middle Eastern culture, funerals are a sacred tradition. They are not mere gatherings intended to give the deceased’s family one’s condolences, but are rather entrenched in the belief system of the culture. Middle Eastern funerals usually see a lot of attendees because our traditions have us believe that the multitude of people attending serve as a good distraction from the idea of loss. The family of the deceased usually make themselves busy with tending to their guests. In my country, that often involves serving Arabic coffee and in some rural areas, large quantities of traditional food. Some families also serve the traditional dessert, knafeh. Even funerals in my culture need to have a sense of warm hospitality.

In a sense, these customs and the fair share of logistical planning they require temporarily ease the sudden pain of loss for the family. Between the preoccupation of the family with entertaining their guests and the huddling of attendees engrossed in conversation, the loss makes people with all different levels of knowledge of the deceased feel connected to one another. The sense of connection alleviates the inevitable feeling of loneliness that hits after loss, even if that connection is formed over conversations unrelated to grieving.

This is how we deal with loss when it is still too recent to comprehend and too painful to acknowledge: we create a philosophy out of it.

In the midst of the pandemic, no longer can this philosophy offer guidance. Covid-19 has changed the way we deal with loss, not only in the sense that it disrupted the usual grieving process, but it also deprived us from our ability to confront and acknowledge our emotions. We cannot find solace in the looks of shared grief in our loved ones’ faces or in the gathering of all those who knew and cared about the deceased. We are forced to confront loss in the most cruel manner: alone, in shock and helpless. We lose the human connection with others and are unable to comprehend yet another piece of unprecedented bad news this year. How do we abruptly learn to deal with loss online?

Grieving has moved largely onto social media platforms, where words seem meaningless and mundane — void of warmth. We cannot spill our hearts into a long, firm embrace that says, I know, I feel it too. Instead, we are stuck commenting on a social media post, the same way we would on a video of a cooking recipe or a photo of a sunset; there is no uniqueness to the act.

On social media, one can type their condolences in a short comment and move on to check the rest of their feed, as if the loss they had just encountered was a minor inconvenience. Online grieving falls short of the passing soul’s right to be honored. To me, it is almost disrespectful.

Dealing with loss on social media makes me feel powerless; my words of condolences feel thoughtless. What can one say in terse, common phrases that would be fitting to the generosity of the passing soul, or comforting to their family and loved ones?

On that hot June morning, the horrors of loss in the time of Covid-19 continued to gnaw at me. Restless and acutely conscious of my helplessness, I fidgeted with my phone, going on and off Facebook where my school had posted a short and sweet eulogy and a few photos of Miss Rasha, smiling as always. I experimented with commenting a few words of condolences that were immediately lost among a sea of other comments from the many people who knew and respected her. Unable to push yet another aspect of my life online, I retreated from the virtual world of grieving and into my inner self.

I’ve also found that one of the most taxing aspects of having to give up human connection in a funeral or otherwise is the disruption of the natural five stages of grief. The lack of a formal closure elongates the denial stage. Psychology claims that denial is our mind’s way of minimizing the overwhelming feeling of loss. With the pandemic already turning our worlds upside-down, a much bigger dose of denial was required to get me through.

Then anger flushed in: anger of not being able to take time out of my day to gather with others and honor her soul. How could Miss Rasha, the mentor who had seen every single graduating class from our school head off to college, not be properly commemorated? How could her 27 years of giving to our school be met with a comment on a social media platform, written within seconds? I was angry at fate, at the pandemic, but I was the harshest with myself. My unresolved anger only added fuel to the fire, further delaying my process of healing.

And what follows that is the stage that I think I have not yet been able to overcome – bargaining. At a time when everything seems to be largely out of our control, bargaining provides us with a perceived sense of control over something.

Psychology yet again claims that the stage following bargaining is depression. While it does not sound like a state anyone would want to reach, it is a natural way of processing emotions. Depression forces us to feel a palpable sense of loss and defeat, but it also tames our imagination of alternative possibilities and brings us back to reality. It allows us to move to the final stage of grief, acceptance.

My NYUAD memories now carry a hint of painful nostalgia to the times Miss Rasha’s excitement for my invitation to Candidate Weekend took over my own uneasiness, and to her warm congratulations on my acceptance, which put me on cloud nine. I will try to associate my NYUAD memories with the beautiful ones I had with her rather than the unhealed wound of her loss.

Although I cannot possibly compare what I felt after the loss of Miss Rasha to what her family felt, Covid-19 has taken away the affirmation of loss that forms the foundation of emotional maturity and acceptance. Perhaps this is why I am writing this — in an attempt to heal.