Post 75 - May 25, 2020
Day 75…
Memorial Day.
100,000 dead.
Lila A. Fenwick, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Law School.
Torin Jamal Howard, a young athlete and a musician.
Kyra Swartz, who volunteered at animal rescue organizations.
Memorial Day started out as Decoration Day which was to honor the Union and Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War.
By the early 1900’s it had become a day in which we remember all of those who lost their lives while serving in the military in service of our country.
1967 was when the name Memorial Day was first used.
Antonio Checo, a social worker.
Coby Adolph, an entrepreneur and an adventurer.
Lorena Borjas, a transgender immigrant activist.
Memorial Day is also the unofficial first day of summer.
Summer technically doesn’t start until June, but many places use the day as the marker to reopen their businesses.
As a kid, Memorial Day is when the town pool reopened.
The Memorial Day parade was a signal that the long endless winter was finally over and school was done.
There was a feeling that we had an endless time of play and clear blue days ahead of us.
No classes.
No obligations.
Freedom to ride our bikes and swim and maybe go on a trip.
Helen Kafkis, a cook known for her chicken and stuffed peppers.
Doris Brown, a wife who passed on the same day as her husband.
Robert Charles Bazzell, loved to drive along route 66.
This year is not quite the same.
Just yesterday, Brazil reported 15,000 new cases of the coronavirus.
They are now second in case numbers, behind only the US.
We have now banned all travel to the US from Brazil.
The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro who is already in trouble for firing a Police official who was investigating his son for alleged corruption, is being blamed for the rise of deaths.
He has steadfastly put the economy of Brazil first and downplayed the danger of the virus calling it “a little flu”.
He has continuously fought local Governors who wanted to close down their districts and forced them to keep them open.
As people die, his opponents are calling for his impeachment and the military is pledging their support to him.
Brazil’s hospitals are at capacity while new infections continue to rise.
The public health system is overwhelmed.
Laneeka Barsdale, a ballroom dancer.
Howard Alexander Nelson, Jr., advocated for health care policy.
Melvin Pumphrey, a mentor.
This year, here in the US, we are going into a very different Memorial Day.
Health care workers are doing everything they can, short of screaming “fire” to urge people to wear masks and maintain social distancing.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s own health care spokesperson, is stating that there is clear scientific data to support the fact that wearing a mask can lessen the virus’s ability to transmit itself throughout the population.
The President and Vice President just attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery - mask-less.
They are the people who should be setting an example.
So, people are going to parties.
People are going to beaches.
People are gathering again in places where the number of cases of people contracting the COVID-19 virus is actually going up - not down.
Sean Christian Keville, a sports fan.
Cynthia Whiting, a doting grandmother.
Fredrick Brown Star, a businessman
Philiadelphia decided not to cancel a Liberty Loan parade and that resulted in 1,000 deaths.
Denver lifted restrictions to be able to celebrate Armistice Day and they saw a big spike, too.
This was all in 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic.
There are lessons that we can learn from that pandemic, but we seem to be ignoring them.
Living in New York during all of this, I think, has given me a different perspective on it.
I look out of my living room window and I can see hundreds of apartments.
Our building is only six stories tall but over 50 different families and individuals live in it.
Surrounding us, are buildings that are many times taller with many times the people in them.
Friends of ours, who are hunkering down outside of the city, in their isolated homes, keep inviting us to visit them.
We would LOVE to see them and swim in their pools, but we just can’t do it.
Not yet.
I’ve seen the mobile field hospitals.
I’ve seen the temporary morgues.
Thomas Waters, a data analysist for affordable housing.
Bassey Offiong, a man who loved his friends.
Mary Desole, a literacy volunteer.
The New York Times devoted the entirety of its first page and several pages inside to a list of those who have lost their lives during this pandemic.
That’s where I am getting these names.
100,000 people have lost their lives to this virus already.
How many more will we have to lose because we can’t keep up our responsible behavior.
We don’t wish each other a happy Memorial Day.
That’s not what today is.
Today is a day where we take a moment to offer thanks to the brave people who fought for us.
The people that we are losing to this virus are not all soldiers.
Some are.
These people are also health care workers and teachers and law enforcement officers.
These people are also wives and fathers and children and friends.
Bakers and cashiers and pilots and janitors.
Financiers and writers and gardeners and lawyers.
Instead of making today a rave, maybe today we should honor those who have lost their lives by doing everything that we can to ensure than more don’t lose theirs.
Julia Maye Alexander, a math, English and history teacher.
Dan Bellitto, a town councilman.
Peggy Rakestraw, an avid reader.
We have fought many wars to preserve our way of life.
My twenty-year-old father fought in World War II.
My brother-in-law fought in Iraq.
Both survived.
Today, we honor those who didn’t make it through their wars.
Let’s honor them by doing everything that WE can to protect each other.
However much we want to party in a crowd today, we are not in a place to be able to do that yet.
The people we are honoring today fought to make sure that our way of life would continue.
The way that we can ensure that our way of life will continue is to start getting back to our lifestyles carefully and compassionately.
Today, we remember those who gave their lives for the rest of us.
Those people weren’t just soldiers, they were people.
I think we can spend some time today, mourning those we are losing in THIS war.
All of the numbers of the lost that are being thrown at us on a daily basis were real people with real lives.
Real people are grieving their loss.
Let’s take some time today to think about all of them.
Lucius Hall, a preacher.
Kamal Ahmed, a hotel banquet worker and Bangladeshi leader.
Alice Chavdarian, a loving, generous and adventurous spirit.