From the poignant CNN Article cited below: "1 year after the first known US coronavirus death, over 450,000 families will never see a loved one again"
of US! Us! us! us. us us?
Today, I was reading CNN as I’ve been doing the laundry — One headline shared that the total death count stands at 459,000 of our fellow Americans, as I began this diary. My heart sank as I did the math: 2 of US are dying every minute from a thing we just began hearing about, one short year ago.
CNN began covering Covid on Jan 6. 2020, 1 year and 1 month ago.
The death toll is horrific enough, but I’d also argue that while we’re grieving the loss of nearly half a million of US, we’ve also lost even more than that. Along the way, we seem to have also lost a collective sense of US, as well.
Of even being an US.
I vividly remember when we lost 2,996 of our fellow Americans on 9/11. It was like a collective gut punch. WE pulled together, and we publicly mourned each death by reading their names, tolling bells in their memory. We created a National Memorial.
We still have a moment of silence in our schools on 9/11, even though none of the children in our schools were even born when it happened. Such is our sense of collective we-ness about what happened to US, all.
We passed laws that changed our security procedures at airports. Oh, we may have commented on having to remove our shoes, but we nonetheless continue dutifully doing so 2 decades later. We allow ourselves to be wanded with nary a word … in airports.
Why is this, our experience as a nation attacked by Covid, so different? What has happened to our sense of us, in the US?
Two More CNN Articles struck me, today.
One article is entitled: 1 year after the first known US coronavirus death, over 450,000 families will never see a loved one again. In it, there are heart wrenching stories about those we’ve lost ranging from the precious 5 yo daughter, Skylar Herbert, whose first responder parents lost her on April 19th. To another about the 9 Sisters from the Motherhouse in Michigan, and another about an Covid orphaned, little boy, and another about a marriage of 71 years cut short by Covid, and then, there are the 2 married Teachers who died holding hands. Gone. All gone from Covid — their families and friends left grieving.
But, are we, as a nation, grieving together?
Does anyone else know what I am talking about?
What happened to that sense of US, during this long dark year of 26.9 million attacks on our people? This killer is currently racking up more than the 9/11 death toll — every day!
How could it be that we seem to care so little about US, each other, that we could have Mask/ Anti-lockdown Protests pop up all over, like this?
When and why did we become so callous and uncaring toward one another that we could actually mount protests against caring for one another?
The second article is entitled: Two House Republicans fined $5,000 each for not completing security screening to enter House floor In it, we hear about 2 Republican Representatives who tried to enter the House Floor without following the new security procedures.
Security procedures that I’m sure both of them regularly comply with to go home and come back to work on an on-going basis … in airports. Yet:
Gohmert left the House floor to go to the bathroom and did not stop to be screened a second time
For goodness sakes, Gohmert sounds like a teenager trying to sneak out and back to class without a pass instead of a grown man, a Congressman, whose workplace was attacked and taken over by a murderous mob just a month ago!
On Jan. 6th, the callousness turned murderous; it became an all out US vs. Them violent event.
In both pictures, we see the evidence of what and why there’s been such a difference between US during the 9/11 and Covid Emergencies. One man’s flag flies in both pictures. The man who will go on trial next week in the Senate for inciting the murderous insurrection on Jan. 6th.
We all presume to know that the Senators will largely vote along political party lines. They will not vote based on the truth or on principle. About half will break their oath. It will be US vs Them.
Even if the the Senate astounded us all by holding him accountable for the wreckage, trauma, and death he incited on Jan. 6th, their vote would not come close to holding him accountable for all the damage he has done to US, in 4 years.
With our 3 branches of balanced power government, I never fully appreciated what impact a President could actually have on our country, on our collective hearts, until these past 4 years. I thought we were adequately shielded from tyranny and the damage one man could do.
I was naive and wrong.
While I’ve been doing laundry and writing this diary for 3 hours. 403 of US have died …
However, after reading that those 3 articles, today, I realized that I didn’t quite feel like I did even a month ago. Despite Jan. 6th, and the pending impeachment and silly persons MYT and Gohmert’s actions, our new President is such a different man. Hopefully, he will have an even greater impact on our US.
This fragile hope of mine is based on evidence, too. Joe Biden signaled to all of us who have been yearning to express our grief for all we’ve lost, that he would not have us ignore our horrific losses or have us grieving alone, any longer.
On the Eve of their Inauguration, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris chose to welcome us and lead us in a Memorial for all of our Fellow Americans lost to Covid through this long, dark, divisive year. With Joe and Kamala in office, I don’t feel quite so all alone, any more. I’m kind of looking forward to us caring about each other, again. I am looking forward to feeling like us, again. We will be We The People of the US. We will be US!
You know, I think I’ll listen to some music while I finish folding the laundry, because I feel somehow lighter, a bit more hopeful than I have in long, long time.
