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Editor’s Note Dear Readers, When we released the Spring 2020 issue of the Health Humanities Journal in early April of this year, I said that the field of the health humanities seemed even more important now than usual. The intervening months, far from settling down, have only proven that assertion again and again. We collectively face a global pandemic that is not only casting our awareness of physical health and death into sharp relief, but also affecting mental wellness as we contend with the burdens of grief, isolation, and anxiety for the present and future, all the while trying to find ways to express our experiences and show empathy to those both near and far from us. I know you, as well as I, have probably gotten tired of hearing the word “unprecedented,” but unfortunately I must apply it again because I don’t know how else to describe the way the Fall 2020 semester has unfolded. Thankfully, the contributors to this edition of the journal have not run out of words in the same way. The production of the journal this semester was certainly different than it has been in years past, but I was nevertheless impressed and humbled by the array of work submitted for consideration. The willingness to confront painful topics, share vulnerable experiences, and craft stories that use imagination to delve into meaningful and relevant issues never ceases to surprise me. In this volume, artists turn to imagery to express the weight of anxiety and depression, poets grieve their friends and family members, students explain lifelong struggles with eating disorders and migraines, and children care for their parents as best they can. Most significantly, a common thread the Editorial Staff and I began noticing in the pieces selected was attention placed on care of loved ones. This appeared in working through grief with family members, bridging barriers of understanding with partners and friends, sharing the burdens of parents’ illnesses, and empathizing with patients with the same intensity as a close relative. Even in this difficult time in the world, when it is easiest to hide away and hope for life to return to normal, what proves most imperative is our readiness to care for others even when we feel ill-equipped. One medical student describes a son repeating “I love you” to his dying father and wonders, “Was he making up for the times he hadn’t said it or squeezing in all the times he wouldn’t be able to?” It seems to me that the reports of giving and receiving care in these works are
