COVID-19 Deaths Month 6: August

The virus is the dominant force in our world right now. It dictates what rules need occur. We must be like the reed and bend lest we break. The basic news still applies. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Six feet apart. Isolate.

Our numbers have been better this summer than I expected them to be. We moved through Phase Three of reopening New York into Phase Four this month, which means most things can be open as long as they can follow covid protocols. Most restaurants spent the last couple of months building outdoor seating and spaces, waiting for this, even while doing take-out orders. But we’ve seen, in town, businesses already flaunting the rules by letting people sit inside their restaurants to eat. They got in trouble for it. We’re not supposed to gather indoors with more than 10-25 people, depending on the size of the space. Our local covid numbers are getting traced back to bars and restaurants and gyms. But the death rate is not climbing as much.

It’s been a long half a year. Even this introverted hermit is feeling the absence of the little social contact I had come to rely on. It propels me to be vigilant about safety protocols so that we can get through this sooner than later.

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.

 

In August, we lost thirty-one thousand six-hundred and thirty-five Americans.

31,635

That's near the total population of the city of Jamestown, NY in 2010.

Since the rise of the pandemic 206,637 Americans have died of it.

 

Over 200,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19.

 

 

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

 

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

 

~ Mary Oliver