Editor's Note

Editor’s Note

Dear Readers,

It is impossible to begin this letter without context. Was it just a year ago that I was frantically rewriting the introduction to the last spring edition of the Health Humanities Journal as news changed daily, looking up the formal definitions of “epidemic” and “pandemic,” and thinking what a peculiar moment that issue would reside within? Did I really believe the naïve hope that we would be able to distribute physical copies on campus in the fall? I have since been disabused of that idea of a contained moment, and even with the vaccine I find it difficult to imagine a return to normal on any timescale that matters, stuck in the nonphysical here reading pandemic literature and wondering how I can begin to justify the pages my thoughts take up.

In this year of continual tragedy and loss, it is very difficult to avoid what seem like the two most available reactions: anger and exhaustion. We can see it in the pieces within this journal. There is justifiable frustration at the vast number of preventable deaths. One writer mourns his grandfather while despairing at simple measures of caution not taken. Another shares her outrage at doctors lacking empathy after a devastating cancer diagnosis. There is an examination of a short story where young people, furious at all they feel cheated out of, turn their blame on the elderly, and an essay on the future of nursing education ends with a litany of questions confronting mounting challenges and inequalities. Alongside these, a patient faces feelings of failure after surgery, and a daughter chronicles descriptions of her mother’s grief after the loss of a loved one that I can’t help but see mirrored in our own experiences in quarantine over the last year: dwindling motivation, disrupted sleep, fragile emotions, avoidance of what is really going on.

And yet, these are not the only responses available to us. The fact that the world has not completely deconstructed over this last year is proof of the incredible ability to continue on, hunting for solutions and silver linings, painting our own if need be. In this journal, there is also hope for activism within nursing education. Alongside characters accepting only hate, others refuse to relinquish their optimism and sense of self. Honest attempts to understand the suffering of others—or if not then at least to offer sympathy and support—show how even as we have been physically separated, there are innumerable ways in which we have come together.

My gratitude goes to all who have supported the journal this year, including our sponsors, who enable us to continue printing the journal and hosting it online. Thanks also to Dr. Jane Thrailkill and Dr. Kym Weed for their support and guidance, to the board of judges of the annual Walker Percy Prize, and to the authors who have contributed to this issue, sharing their vulnerability, insight, and essential perspectives. To the Editorial Staff: I will never quite get over the loss of not being able to work on the journal with you all in person this year, and in fact it feels odd that for several of you, we have only ever known each other through pixelated video calls. Nevertheless, we have done what at many times during the year I thought was impossible and put together another two issues of this journal to stand with those that came before. It would not have happened without your work and careful attention in understanding and refining these pieces, and I am grateful to all of you. As I graduate, I am happy to leave the Health Humanities Journal in the hands of its next editor-in-chief, looking toward a hopeful future with lively debates and sprawling conversations that we have all been missing in this year of virtual life.

The Editorial Staff and I are proud to present the Spring 2021 issue of The Health Humanities Journal of UNC-Chapel Hill. The poems, narratives, and essays within are not all happy. That would be an unreasonable request even in the best of years. There is anger and sorrow and grief. But as you read these works, we hope that you will see their vulnerable honesty and be able to find in them inspiration to enact change, catharsis of the losses so many have shared, commonality to prove you are not alone, and above all, hope for healing, for care, and for another open tomorrow.

All my best,

Elizabeth Coletti

Editor-in-Chief