Let’s pause. Reflect on our humanity. The devastation of COVID. Because when we’re done reflecting, we put politics aside and embrace, from our hearts, the dignity, the humanity, the love. This is the only way to win. Love and life over death and darkness.
Yesterday, the names of those who perished on 9/11 were read aloud, one by one. Over the sound of water spilling and flowing down, with pauses for six silent moments that still take the breath away — we listen to the names read aloud. The names. The names that reflect ordinary persons of every faith, ethnicity. Eyes well with tears as we hear the dignified and heartfelt remarks from children, nieces, wives, brothers.
I remember the late 1980s when the AIDS crisis was brought to the nation’s capital. The names. The names — laid out — in a quilt that took over our national mall. The number -- 110,000.
In January 2021, as the nation prepared to inaugurate a new president, 400 lights circled the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Each light was to represent 1,000 humans. The sight was beautiful, somber, but insufficient to the heart. One light cannot represent 1,000 human lives.
The lives lost to COVID. The names. They say that there are far too many names to put in one place. I disgree, respectfully. Imagine a means by which we can make the number into names. Lights. A quilt. A list in stone. Imagine if we had to read the names of our fellow citizens who have lost their lives to this illness.
Each year, it takes almost 4 hours to read the names on 9/11 at the New York Memorial. If we added those humans who have become sick and lost their lives from the cleanup, how long would it take? (As a New Yorker, I dislike the war-like phrase “Ground Zero.” Although the area has many uses today, it is still a gravesite, a place for reflection and remembrance).
Imagine if we read the names of those who perished to COVID aloud. More than 500,000 Americans. Or we assembled the squares on a quilt. Or a single illumination for each person. Imaging we memorialized all of the names in granite. Doing so would make the size of our collectively losses real, tangible, enormous.
The Names, collected in one tangible place, would be so profound it would shout over the inhuman sentence coming from those who are all too okay for it to continue.
Just like we do for the 9/11 families, the names, collected in one place, would lead to tears, hugs, and a recommitment to precious life.