First, thank you for everything you do helping others. My sister (who passed away in Jan - almost mercifully) was a nurse. I know how much of her heart and soul she gave to her charges every min of the day. You make a difference in our world.


My thought is that many of our "daily heroes" have been fighting to emotionally and mentally "hold it together" so they can continue to give the care and support that they know others need right now.


The problem is that your world is NOT the world it was before COVID-19. This is such a horrid and sad situation. Even people who are not infected are directly impacted. For example, my father has been in hospital for a week now due to diabetic issues. He was crying yesterday because my mother can't go to him. He does not have COVID and neither does she. But the nurses have been so kind to try to keep the phone calls available when they can. But I know it must break their hearts as much as it does mine when they hear a grown man crying for his wife of 50 yrs.

I would like hospitals to start giving off an extra 3 days (MIN!) a month for grief processing. Those days could be used at any time in that month when the person feels they need to process what they are experiencing. It is soul wrenching. You are a human. You need to have that personal time and space to spend with yourself and process these emotions in your way. This is NOT a vacation or a day "off" by any stretch of the imagination. It is what needs to happen so people in your position can continue to do what they are doing.

I encourage you to maybe ask for an hour while at work to just go into a closed room and allow yourself to cry. You need to feel these emotions. There is nothing wrong with you feeling grief in this situation. In fact, a person would be very unhealthy if they had no emotional response in this crisis. Feel what you feel in an honest way. Your passion is what makes you such a phenomenal human.