COVID-19 Deaths Month 2: April

Many more areas of the world are under stay-at-home or lockdown orders. We in New York are on a state lockdown. If you have to shop, send one person out for shopping and only for the essentials. No gatherings. No in-person religious services. Even the Pope is asking people to stay home for Easter.

The virus is spreading rapidly in the big cities. The news from my friends in New York City is something of a nightmare. What we're hearing out of Italy is frightening.

I am reading all of the science as it comes out. I am also praying it does not get worse. We only know what we know until we learn it to be untrue. The science will change as we learn new things about this particular virus. It's important that we stay open to that.

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 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 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. That isolation is necessary. This month's death toll multiplied. I can barely hold the number in my mouth.

 

In April, we lost fifty-five thousand, three hundred, and thirty-two Americans.

55,332

That's near the total population of White Plains, NY in 2010.

  

Light a candle. Say a prayer. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart. If you think you are ill isolate yourself for 72 hours. If you think you have been exposed quarantine yourself for 14 days before exposing anyone else to you. Video chat with your loved ones. We can do this. May we all come out the other side.

 

[Statistics gathered from this W.H.O. website. They have changed as the numbers have come in, so there is some wiggle room around the exact number.]

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A Contemplative Poem for the Month

 

I Worried

 

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

 

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

 

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

 

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

 

~ Mary Oliver