Woe is Me, I am Undone: Lament in a Time of Suffering and Distress

Abstract

The demands of nursing care in a pandemic are both extraordinary and hazardous. Beyond exhaustion, those demands can be the cause of profound suffering and distress while the nurse must, even so, persevere. The act of composing a lament offers nurses and other healthcare providers a means to express personal grief and suffering as they go about caring for those stricken with COVID-19; as they become an intermediary for families who cannot be with loved ones in their dying moments; as they worry about triage and clinical decisions that must be made; as they fear the very act of nursing itself with inadequate protective gear; or as they worry about carrying a virus to their own loved ones. The ancient, structured, literary form of a personal lament has conceptual footing in the humanities, offering a means of examining and expressing one’s suffering, grief, and distress. This article considers why to lament, and introduces to readers an individual lament and its structured template of seven elements that guides one into their suffering – and then out again. A lament can be formulated orally or in writing, and can be an exercise that is strengthening, healing, and clarifying, in the midst of the nursing demands of this pandemic, and those that may yet emerge.