this snuck up on me. i saw online that the new york times had devoted its full sunday may 24, 2020 front page to a list of names and details of the 100,000 who had died from covid-19. it seemed like a very cool idea. the power of the concept definitely struck me.
and then this morning, two days after it was published, i glanced at the paper edition on my breakfast table and immediately burst into tears. i kept reading and kept crying. the staff that wrote it culled through thousands of obituaries and newspaper notices to produce this representative list (if there is such a thing) of 1,000 names, ages and brief descriptions of people struck down by the disease.
without planning it, it became clear that my morning meditation had become reading through that whole list. that is not at all something that i would normally do but i simply was compelled to. if you can get ahold of a paper version of this edition please allow yourself this heart-opening experience. at first i thought it was just names and ages, but it’s the descriptive snippets that just zing you. most are sweet, many are impressive, some are even funny. what mainly hit me is that the power of love was doing so much through so many of these people. here are all these dear folks making a difference in so many lives.
ten examples from the front page that give you the range of these lives:
- april dunn, 33, baton rouge, la, advocate for disability rights
- muriel m. going, 92, cedarburg, wi, taught her girls sheepshead and canasta
- thomas waters, 56, new york city, armed the affordable housing movement with data and analysis
- frances m. pilot, 81, wall, nj, known as big momma to all who loved her
- davis begaye, 48, cudel, nm, worked at the home depot
- steve joltin, 75, rockville, md, i.t. manager with “an eye for beautiful and unusual things”
- lia a. fenwick, 87, new york city, first black woman to graduate from harvard law school
- dale e. thurman, 65, lexington, ky, tailor known for his exacting work and strong opinions
- joe diffie, 61, nashville, grammy-winning country music star
- arlola rawls, 81, chicago, caretaker of her neighborhood
oh what beauty there is in the human spirit. how wonderful we are. how sad it is to mourn the passing of these delightful souls. how lucky we are that the new york times gives us this way to acknowledge their passing and to grieve the 100,000 lives that covid-19 brought to an end.
please read this list to yourself sometime this week–give yourselves that treat. and may you receive from that experience, as i did, a greater appreciation of the love that you are on the planet and for the beautiful humans that surround you, however they are showing up and whatever they are doing or being.
and now, i, in small humble recognition of the 100,000 lost, tip my hat to them by making a commitment to teach myself and someone else the game of sheepshead, which muriel m. going above taught her girls. it sounds pretty challenging, but i love cards and play bridge so presumably it is doable. who is in?
