“What is grief?” Wanda, Vision, and the world that helped me heal
Millions of people have come together to watch WandaVision since its first episodes aired on Disney+ this past January. We were once again along for the ride of Wanda and Vision’s love- the what could have beens, the joy that will always exist, and most prominently, the stages of grief. As viewers, we grieve for and with Wanda and everything that she’s lost. My experience watching WandaVision was full of that pain for her, while also navigating grief myself as I dealt with a loss of my own.
While no one anticipated that WandaVision’s grand entrance into the world would be through a worldwide pandemic, it fits the world of the show. Taking place in “the Hex,” Wanda creates an entire life, born out of her grief, that exists within a bubble where the outside borders turn into a mystery as well as something that should be feared. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a raging force in my life since it shut down my college’s campus in March 2020, sending students into online learning. Juggling the new reality and coping with my own anxieties, I watched my mom, a nurse, go to work everyday in a hospital that was starting to feel more dystopic by the day. For a while there were no hugs and little time spent together out of pure fear that something would be brought home and spread to my dad, sister, and I. Stories from friends and family, phone alerts, and news broadcasts were constantly echoing the terrifying numbers of the lives lost to this virus. I started to see people I simply knew through social media lose the ones they loved the most. Knowing how incredibly cautious and safe my entire family was, I could have never predicted that someone I loved would soon be a part of the statistics.
I found out that my grandmother was dying the day episode four of WandaVision aired. I can honestly admit that I have never cried so hard or so loudly in my entire life. I felt numb, like someone had stabbed me in the chest. I went home that weekend to be with my family as everything came to an end. I said goodbye to my grandmother via Facetime- she had tubes all around her, hooked up to monitors and the ventilator which was the only thing keeping her alive. The image I have of her laying in that hospital bed, my family trying to say goodbye but unable to find the words, is perpetually etched into my brain. It’s one of the things that keeps me up at night when I’m having, what I’ve started to call, a “hard grief night.” The echoes of the sobs, the praying, and the words of affirmation and love live permanently in my brain. It’s not something you can just forget or move on from. She looked so sad and frail, not the fun-loving, deeply involved and passionate grandmother I once knew. You could tell she was losing her fight- the virus had won, completely destroying her lungs that once helped support my favorite laugh. To be totally transparent, I cried myself to sleep every night that weekend (and this was only the beginning). The waiting game of the ventilator being turned off was long and draining. Whenever I found myself tossing and turning, I would put on episode one of WandaVision. I could recite it by heart by the end of the weekend. Agnes and Wanda’s banter made me smile immensely, and Vision’s singing and intense determination to keep the Hart’s attention made me laugh deeply- two things that felt so hard to do at this point.
Not too far into the following week, my grandma left this earth with my grandpa by her side. The damage this virus did on her body was extensive, there was nothing anyone could have done. While it was a month long fight, it was all so sudden and abrupt. She was here one moment, gone the next. Ripped from us all far too soon. I began to spiral a bit. I was having a deeply difficult time processing this new reality. It felt like I was going through the motions; walking on eggshells, doing everything in my power to hold it together for my own sake and for the rest of my family and friends. I can’t say I was very successful. The world kept spinning even though it felt like mine was crashing down. Juggling school while a ticking time bomb of grief sat on the back of my mind truly weighed me down. I went back to school, continuing to go through the motions. The crying while I fell asleep continued, the heartache rallied on, and I simply kept pushing forward with a smile on my face. WandaVision Fridays kept me going, as I always knew there would be some sort of joy to be found and felt. Before I knew it, February came and went. The one month anniversary of my grandma’s passing, in addition to my 21st birthday, rapidly approached. Firsts are always the worst, and I had dreaded the first week of March with everything in me.
Episode eight aired the week before my birthday. I had spent the week in the darkest hole since learning that my grandma was passing. I could not shake the sadness, the lump in my throat, or the perpetual glassy eyes. I was getting angry with myself at this point. Why wasn’t I okay? Why couldn’t I be okay? Would I ever get over this? Why can I cry for two hours and still have hours of tears still left in me? I could not stop thinking about the week that loomed ahead and all it was to hold, which just made matters so much worse. I called my mom and cried some more. I probably dehydrated myself a number of times. I could not verbalize what I was feeling or why I was feeling what I was. I was starting to make myself sick, but I was determined to figure it out and cope somehow. WandaVision Friday rolled around, yet again, and suddenly the rug was lifted out from under me. Everything that I was struggling to put into words was described right in front of me. In a flashback to Wanda and Vision within the Avengers compound, Wanda talks to Vision about her emotional state.
“I’m so tired. It’s… It’s just like this wave washing over me, again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I… It’s just gonna drown me.”
I sat on the couch in my dorm room, by myself, stunned. It might seem simple, but that was the greatest analogy for how I had been feeling for weeks. Already feeling so overcome, nothing in this world would have prepared me for Vision’s response.
“Well, [because] it can’t all be sorrow, can it? I’ve never experienced loss because I have never had a loved one to lose. But what is grief, if not love persevering?”
There it was. The collective gasp heard around the world. That was the outlook I had yet to consider. I was so deep in the sadness and this deep desire for the grief to pass, that I had not considered what it was out of. Yes it was born from the loss, but it’s all out of love. It was like a switch flipped in my brain. When the waves came, I rode them out. Instead of looking at them with anger and like it was something I should run from, I let myself embrace it with less judgement and frustration. It was freeing and allowed me to start to heal in a way I had not been able to for weeks.
The depiction of the stages of grief within WandaVision’s seamless storyline are so poignant and carefully crafted. Elizabeth Olsen takes us on this journey, letting us into Wanda’s psyche through big scene stealing moments and little looks to the world around her. The moment that consistently breaks me the most within every one of my rewatches is when Wanda is standing in the concrete skeleton of the home she was to grow old in with Vision. The collective collapse of everything in her and the physical depiction of her grief’s power is one of the most beautiful, gut wrenching, and understandable moments of the entire series. It’s the physical depiction of how I walked around this earth for many, many days. That back wrenching, emotional pour out was what continuously sat in my chest.
Obviously grief is different for everyone and how we heal is so unique to us, but I can honestly say that grief in COVID-19 times is a whole other level of navigation. Watching people across the U.S. not take this virus seriously from the beginning while knowing the environment that loved ones were working in within hospitals around the country was a frustration within itself. That said frustration reaches a new height when you lose a loved one (and continue to see the numbers rise) and see people who are “tired” go back to living their normal lives because they simply can’t be bothered wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, or doing anything to stop the spread of this virus. I have to say, I’m traumatized from the process of losing my grandmother in a short month because of COVID-19. To get up everyday, walk through my college’s campus, look at everyone wearing masks, read our daily positive test numbers, and simply exist knowing that there are people out there who think this is all a joke, etc. was exhausting. It still is.
All in all, it was quite the experience to use a show about using television as a coping mechanism to help myself cope. To sit and grieve with Wanda — knowing damn well that your sadness has the power some days to send you into an alternate reality where everything is okay — is a journey and personal connection I will never have the words to articulate my gratitude for. In times of need, we as humans always seem to turn to the arts. It’s part of our nature whether we know it or not. They bring us comfort in very specific ways- ways that others may not fully understand or see, and in ways we might not expect. Never in my life did I expect to suffer the loss I did in the way I did, but there’s something about the timing of it that brings me comfort beyond belief. How lucky I am to have this metaphorical shoulder to cry on. Whenever the waves come I continue to ride them out, and if I need that extra boost of familiarity, comfort, and transparency, I’ll put on my favorite episodes of WandaVision. Episode one, which is home to the greatest escape, and episode eight, which meets me right where I’m at by reminding me of what makes this healing process so hard. While I can guarantee you that my story is not unique, I think it’s always important to share the impact media can have on us. So here I am, giving you my little story, and sending my deepest gratitude to the cast and crew of WandaVision- thank you for seeing me through the dark and reminding me that it’s all love persevering.
