COVID-19 Deaths Month 1: March

In New York we have been under stay-at-home orders since March 13. There is a virus spreading swiftly across the continents. The information we're getting now is likely to change as this is a new virus but some of the science is consistent.

Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart. Limit social contact. If you feel sick isolate yourself for three days. If you think you may have been exposed quarantine for two weeks.

I pray it does not get worse.

It is strange to be under orders to stay-at-home but I understand the necessity of halting the spread. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that the aisles of toilet paper and paper towels and antibacterial sprays and wipes are empty.

We had our first covid-19 death in Broome County on the Spring Equinox. It feels very real here now. I am welcoming in spring by watching our country’s death toll rise, praying for it to crest, wishing it to go down. My spirituality honors the dead and I cannot look away from the numbers of souls the virus is claiming.

How bad is this one going to be?

I check the total dead each day. I have a list of numbers. Every night at midnight I light my ancestor altar. I call on those who have weathered plagues and mysterious illnesses that swept through villages and cities. I call on my foremothers and fathers who lost loved ones, and those who lost their own lives in such times. I ask them to guide the dead. I ask them to watch over the living. I ask them to wrap the world in some measure of peace.

And then I chant the number of souls who died that day. I chant it seven times. I wish them ease. I wish them peace. I sometimes cry for their families, for the ones who died alone. Especially for the ones who died alone. Viruses don't care about human need. I try to remember that.

It's a simple ritual. It keeps me mindful of what is happening outside of my own isolation.

In March, two thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-five people died.

2,755

That's the total population of Roslyn, NY in 2010. 

Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart. We can do this. May we all come out the other side.

 

[Statistics gathered from this W.H.O. website.]

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A Contemplative Poem for the Month

 

no one told the trees

 

gatherings of more than ten

have been canceled

so they put on all their best blooms

and celebrated shamelessly under the sky

 

reminding me that all I need

is sunlight, a gentle rain, and a

little bit of fresh air.

 

happy spring.

 

~ eila carrico