HOW DO WE REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE DIED OF COVID
What strikes me as I read the obituaries and stories about the people who have died from Covid is just how remarkably ordinary most of them are. These stories show the pictures of the faces of people I could meet anywhere and at any time.
Yet for all the apparent ordinariness of these people, I believe it may be one of the most important things we do is to take time to actually learn about these individuals. Otherwise, their deaths are simply a statistic; not a life. As I write this, Covid has claimed more than 337,000 lives in this country. Every day now, we lose more people from this virus than we lost on September 11, 2001.
Who are these people? I know that each loss creates a hole in someone else’s life; shatters a hope; devastates a family. Yet, it is the ordinary person who makes our personal lives extraordinary; in ways we cannot know or measure, until the loss occurs.
How do we go about remembering them in any meaningful way? Should there be a national memorial service like the one we have, annually, for the victims of September 11, 2001? Reading the names of the almost 3,000 victims from that day takes more than three hours. And like the daily toll of more than 3,000 people dying daily from this disease, the people who died on that fatal day were ordinary. They were the flight attendants, pilots, janitors, firefighters, secretaries, cooks, police officers and business people who just happened to be in the wrong location that day. Regardless of what their profession was, they were a linchpin in a family, a member of a community, a partner to someone.
Now we have a daily roster of such losses. The ones we have lost this year were someone’s mother, sister, brother, uncle, grandparent, cousin, fiancé. They have been our healers, teachers, grocery clerks, friends and neighbors. The newspapers, whether in print or digital, are filled with their images. I am afraid that we will forget them, brush them back under the headline of the disastrous year of 2020. How do we honor them? We need to meet and know these people on some level.
Meet 29-year-old Stephanie Smith, a Texan who was supposed to be celebrating her wedding in November, but died. Instead of a wedding, her life is being remembered at her funeral.
Meet Erika Bercerra, 33 years old, who never held her second child. She died about two weeks after giving birth.
Meet Alexa Welt, who was just fifteen when she died in Kentucky. She had survived cancer, only to succumb to Covid.
Meet Michael Lang, who was eighteen and a freshman in college in Ohio when he died.
Meet Valeria Viveros, a 20-year-old nursing assistant, when she died after a short period of time working in a California nursing home.
I chose the obituaries of young people to underscore the deadly toll in this country. They represent the heartbreak that all of us need to feel. They are just a few of the people, now lost to us, out of the more than 337,000 that are directly attributable to Covid.
I could go on — and perhaps you should on your own. These are just a few people, all young, all ready to get on with life and contribute something to their families, communities, and perhaps, even their country. To get just a small sense of the tragedies wrought by this disease, you only need to read the obituaries in your area.
The list of people we need to meet would fill a very large book. Sadly, none of us would ever read it. How many of our fellow citizens have died, needlessly, will never be known. If we had all believed that this virus was present, deadly for many, and we all stepped up to a sense of shared responsibility, we don’t know if many of these casualties might have been avoided.
I believe it was Mother Teresa who said, “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” At this point, with so many losses, what does it even mean to act? I am no longer sure.
The number of deaths from Covid is staggering. And even looking at this ever-increasing number, there are still more every minute. Yet the Covid deaths do not fully capture additional tragedies this year. The CDC mortality statistics tell us that America has experienced thousands and thousands more deaths than normal, and while the Covid diagnosis may not be on the death certificate, these deaths may be caused by some aspect of the pandemic.
These are the excess deaths that have happened during this pandemic. The CDC provides a stark visualization of these numbers and by April of this year, its dashboard of mortality showed that America experienced more than 25% excess deaths each week, and continues to do so. What is causing this? Lack of access to regular health care is one thought. Withering away in isolation caused by months of lockdowns? Who knows? It will take years to understand the reasons.
For me, there is another sadness, buried in the death statistics. This year my 93-year old-mother passed away at the end of October. She was a resident of a mixed type of residence; one that has both independent and assisted living residents.
If she had resided in a residence labeled either nursing home or assisted living, I would not have been able to visit at all. But because of this mixed housing situation, beginning in August I was once again able to spend some time with her. By then, though, when visits resumed, it was clear that the five months of lockdown had taken their toll. When the quarantining began in March, she was still able to use her computer, read her newspapers, and eat and dress herself. Yes, she needed help with some activities of daily living, and her cognitive skills had begun to slip.
But by August, the loneliness from not being able to see anyone, or dine with others, or participate in any activities for the five months, had reduced her considerably. The depression, from the lack of any social life, resulted in her not eating or moving around. And so she slipped much more quickly into dementia and had other health problems.
Yes, she was ninety-three: a very good age by any standard. Her death certificate doesn’t list Covid as any one of the conditions causing her death. Rather it seems that she died of cardiac arrest and dementia. Yet, I believe that if Covid had been better managed in this country, and that public policy recognized the toll taken on those living in such severe isolation, and began providing robust testing protocols and other protective measures, the impact on her might have been less lethal.
We have lost a great deal in this country. For the young lives cut short, it is tragic. If they had lived, who knows what the ripple effect of their existence might have been? For every teacher who was lost, there are countless students who are not benefiting from their insights. For every police officer who is taken early, who knows what protections for the public have been lost? For every doctor, nurse, fire fighter, minister, or others who are no longer with us, we have lost opportunities to improve ourselves, our communities and our country.
How do we memorialize these losses? After gun tragedies, communities place flowers at the location of the shootings. I have seen many wreaths placed alongside roadsides where car accidents happened. And of course, there is the 9/11 example. On each anniversary, the names of the victims are read.
But for the more than 337,000 who have now left us? How do we remember them?
I want to honor them by doing what I can to make sure that I don’t spread this terrible disease. So I will mask up, physically distance, make sure that I don’t do something that, even inadvertently, might spread the disease to one more person. This isn’t a sacrifice on my part: it’s my way of paying tribute to all of those whose memories are to be honored.
