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What Will Your One Line Be?
Reflections on today’s front page of The New York Times memorializing 100,000 lives lost to COVID-19.
I contemplated just leaving the photo of today’s New York Times front page up there without any words because, honestly? If you’re remotely close to anything resembling a decent human being, that list of names should render you speechless while feeling a somersault of emotions. That’s my reaction, anyway.
Of course, the first person I thought of — and looked for, even though I know his name isn’t there — is my father-in-law. My understanding is that the names listed are compiled from newspaper obituaries. Well, there isn’t an official newspaper obituary for my father-in-law. You know how much those damn things cost for a few lines? It’s criminal, really. And I believe that we’ll never know officially if his death was counted among those occurring at Pennsylvania’s nursing homes because apparently people disagree on the data and fingers are being pointed and whatever, blah, blah, blah.
All I know is what I wrote a month ago: behind the numbers are the names. The lives lived. The people loved.
