Those we have lost are more than just numbers

As our nation is reaching 90,000 deaths from the coronavirus with Connecticut’s loss at 3,400 (and New York 28,000), why are we ignoring the magnitude of that many American deaths without even recognizing them as individuals, or their sacrifice, in this tragedy? Are we going to mourn them, or just forget them and move on in our nation’s rush to reopen? Will we be a nation with a heart? Or will we lose our soul?

Typically, in moments of crisis our political leaders step up and demand that we present the “better angels of our nature.” We have no Lincolns, so we can’t look to leaders for direction. Instead, we need to look more deeply into ourselves and let history guide us.

We are at that moment in history, the literal moral crossroads, we read about in history. It is now or never, with the coronavirus still among us, with this terrible pandemic bringing personal suffering and loss to so many, that will be seen as a turning point in American history, a pivotal moment that marks all that came before is different and all that comes after. Let’s not let it become just a footnote in a rush to move on. Our region has had its share of national tragedies and has taught the nation how to grieve and use that grief to power a renewed faith in humanity.

We can set the path we are on now through how we grieve for those that have been lost. Right now we only see individual losses, private events or the abstract statistics. These losses are personally painful, but not just to the individual families. They are painful, or should be, to the nation. And I’m not talking about the economic impact of the loss, as important as that might be. I’m talking about the real human loss. That’s the tragedy that we seem to be missing. As a nation we have not had that moment of recognition for the terrible collective loss that we as a country have suffered. If we continue down this road we would have learned nothing from this pandemic and chosen to harden our hearts. We would choose to believe that people have to die for progress. But it’s not too late; we aren’t that far down this dark path. We can turn around and choose the light. We can change history.

In previous national tragedies, such as the 1911 Triangle Fire in New York City or the 9/11 attacks, we paused to recognize the loss, recalling the names and faces of those who died. Curating these individual stories creates a national narrative. Those of us in the New York region at the time the World Trade Center came down remember the missing persons photos on fences, corners and light posts. We read the stories of those who died in newspapers, personalizing the tragedy, and connecting it to our community fabric. These acts reminded us of our humanity, how we are all connected. That was a central part of the loss and it is what connected the personal to the collective. We didn’t just count numbers or look at statistics; we remember the people. Cable news, broadcast networks and newspapers such as this one ran stories and personalized the loss in a way that the entire state felt connected to the pain.

With this epidemic we seem to be still stuck looking at the numbers. It’s dehumanizing, abstract and disconnected. And maybe that’s understandable because of the sheer volume of this moment that we’re still witnessing right now in our region. But, as a nation, we have an obligation of honoring the dead by not letting them just be seen as numbers. Our heart is still strong enough to revive our humanity.

At this moment in time right now, we need to make a decision about how and when we open up as a society. We need to pay close attention to the statistics of the situation. But in our rush to get back to business, we risk taking another step closer towards the further dehumanization of our society. We have to pause in the simple magnitude of the loss before us. We need to collectively mourn those we have lost, not just what we have lost.

Those that have died are our neighbors, friends and coworkers. They deserve our collective mourning and respect. If we do not take this very human and cultural step, they will become a blip in history books and stay only personal losses for their families. The larger significance will be lost, gone with our heart. In short, we will learn nothing from their passing.

We need to recognize those who were lost as part of our community and find a way to mourn them collectively. We need to get angry at this loss and most importantly learn from the tragedy so that we never let this happen again. We can’t prevent death. But we can learn how we could protect our neighbors better next time. We will harden our hearts, turn our backs on our humanity, and narrow our sense of community. We will internalize the economic losses as individual losses and we will remember COVID-19 for the inconveniences of living without Doordash, the long lines at Stop & Shop, the lack of toilet paper, and the now ever-present mask. In short, we will lose our way and become that dystopian science fiction world we fear.

The time is now to choose our future. Let’s not choose selfishness and darkness. Yes we must reopen, but we must also honor those lost by doing it with them in mind. Let’s choose heart, light, and humanity.