The lives of 100 people taken by COVID-19

This is not the most chipper post ever, but I felt a whole lot of feelings listening to the NY Times The Daily podcast from May 29, 2020. Also, it's the year 2020, so chipper has proven to be a relatively unlikely and unexpected mood, anyway.

The NY Times podcast linked above was produced after the United States passed the awful milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 related deaths last week. The podcast remembered 100 people of those 100,000. A handful of stories were expounded upon. Many got a one-fact line - "loved Elvis" or "was a renegade nun". Many of the last ones were names and ages. With about four minutes left to that segment, I paused the podcast. I didn't know if I could go on. I hit play again.

I had two separate thoughts as I listened:

1. When I have been in New York City, I always was interested in how people were able to make it in the Big Apple. My Midwest mindset found the big, BIG city life simply astounding and wondrous. New York just made me so much more interested in people. Dare I say, New York cracked open my ability to be empathetic. It exposed me to the incredible beauty, art, diversity and culture we humans can smash into our civilization. There's another side to that coin, but we'll just stick with the good one for now. Also, please note that these 100 people are from all over, not just NYC. It's just NYC is often on my mind, and it was on my mind listening to this.
2. When I started in prospect research, I read a lot of obituaries. When I no longer did that work, I kept reading obituaries. All my life I have been interested in how memory, life, death, and writing intersect. An obituary is one of those incredible intersections, something that is sad and celebratory, or short and heartbreaking, or some other combination of length and tone. I really appreciate great obituaries, as I found myself paralyzed and completely immobilized with sadness when trying to write my father's. I remain impressed with anyone who can focus enough to produce a great obituary, a piece about loss. 

The very last line of the 100 lives segment was someone's last words. I completely broke down and uttered "I hope that's the last one" through tears. Even a veteran obituary reader like myself found this hard to get through. Glad I did it, though.

The front page that day was pretty incredible, too. This was much like what Italy shared - the newspapers filling up with obituaries and death notices. Very powerful and so frightening.

Reader, prepare your tissues.

Being that it's 2020, surely you have them handy.

A New Way to Grieve - with Food

At This Dinner Party, Talking About Death With Strangers Isn't Taboo

Talking about grief and the loss of a loved one isn't typically dinner conversation. Many people, even those struggling to cope with loss, will avoid talking about such heavy topics, especially over supper.

But a fledgling nonprofit designs dinners specifically for young adults to get together and talk about their experiences with loss.

In cities across the country, the group The Dinner Party advises 20- and 30-somethings on how to arrange these gatherings.

Year of Gratitude - Day 295 - Patience

No gift can ever top the one I received this evening. He waited for me. I am so grateful that he waited for me. I love you.

Year of Gratitude - Day 165 - Dr. Sidney Bolkosky

Sid was one of my undergraduate professors. On this day, my birthday, in 2013, Sid passed away after a long battle with disease.  I feel so extremely lucky to have been able to take an intense course like The Intellectual History of Modern Europe with him. When I took his classes and completed the homework for them, I felt my intellectualism and critical thinking were at their best. I looked back on some of the stuff I turned in and felt proud. Sid made me realize my inner-scholar existed.

I miss you, Sid.

Year of Gratitude - Day 146 - William Zinsser

William Zinsser died at age 92 this month. He wrote On Writing Well, one of the finest books on writing. The New York Times obituary said it "...became a book that editors and teachers encouraged writers to reread annually in the manner of another classic on the craft of writing, The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White."

I am very grateful to have been exposed to this book early. I and many others who hope to write well are grateful for Mr. Zinsser's text. 

Related:

• NY Times obituary
• Remembering Bill Zinsser
• On Writing Well

Year of Gratitude - Day 87 - Audrey

Early in the morning on this day in 2012, I received one of the most difficult calls I could ever imagine. Our niece, Audrey, passed away just weeks after her third birthday. My husband and I were very, very fortunate to have celebrated that last birthday with her. We will always cherish her warm, tender little thank-you hug.

Until I wrote this post, I never thought about considering that hug as a happy memory to return to in life, probably because of its close proximity to death. Burying a child is an intensely painful memory, but as I reread her obituary, I delighted in my memories of our short time with her. The very thought of her makes me smile. I miss her very much and I will keep that tender hug with me always.

Year of Gratitude - Day 67 - Jen Preston

Today my friend Jen Preston died. She was a great librarian and we were both interns at Southfield Public Library at the same time. The last time I saw her a few months ago was on the fiction desk at SPL. She was really tired and it was before her heart surgery and that. I'm sad that would be the last time I'd see her, but I was happy to spend a shift on the desk with her one last time.

Library land will miss you, Jen. We will all miss you.

Related Links:

• Jen Preston: Novi Library champion of teens passes away
• Get to Know Novi Public Library - Jennifer Preston

Dealing with death in the last months of my twenties

The following was written by me on April 1, 2012, but I never got to publishing it. For me, 2012 was one of the worst ever. My family experienced some pretty serious deaths by that point - my grandmother at the beginning of the year and then my wonderful niece just two weeks after her third birthday. 

As I went through my some writing drafts on the first of this new year, I found this piece of writing and it inspired me. I'm so happy that I took down my feelings and my thoughts after a number of pretty awful events, because even though I didn't feel I was thinking clearly then, I wrote a few things that were quite clear. I'm so glad that I made a plan on how to focus my sadness. I didn't accomplish everything below, but that's the beauty of writing it down. I can rediscover it and continue on a path to being better.

April 1, 2012 

Dealing with death is not exactly how I expected to spend the last months of my twenties. Two of the most amazing people I've ever known I've lost this year, my Babcia Wanda and my little niece Audrey. I don't think I can get much on the page right now that makes too much sense, but I do want to get something down.

First, the deaths of Babcia and Audrey have made me want to live life to the very fullest, whether I have a week to live or another five decades. And it has made me so much more keenly aware that my time to spend with other people maybe shortened because they're time is limited on earth. So what if I live to be a 100 and don't have great experiences with every person I can? It is not that I haven't given it my all in the past, but I haven't been a positive force on those around me. Negativity has had a way of controlling me in the past and I want to live better each day.

I want to write more. I want to write about my family more and about my husband. I want to write about libraries and in support of them. I want to respond to foolishness with the written word. I want to write poetry. I want to write foolishness and make people laugh. 

I want to read, because the only way to get better at writing is to read it first. I really want to make the hour of 10-11pm my reading hour. I want to turn off all the screen in my life and read. I want to read so I can write. I want to volunteer to read books to children and help illiterate adults learn to read.

I want to serve. It is important to enjoy and take care of myself, but I have been fortunate and I need to give back in many ways. I'm still feeling out how to do this, but Audrey's passing has given me focus on pediatrics and children.

Mourning the Loss of a Child

“Beauty exists only in struggle.” - F. T. Marinetti 

 “My enemies will not remain, nor will my friends remain. I shall not remain. Nothing will remain.” - Santiveda, Bodhisattvacharyāvatāra

It is with writing that I get through the heaviest of times. This time cannot be an exception. We lost our sweet little niece yesterday. It was just a week after her third birthday, which we were so blessed to have been part of. I can still sense her delight as she unwrapped her toys. I can still see her radiant, joy-filled smile. I can still feel her soft, warm embrace. For such a little person, her impact on my life was huge.

Yesterday, I was sent home from work. I only went because I was so lost after the news. It was an automatic response in an attempt to normalize what could not be normal. I tried to do what my boss asked. He said to me, "Please try not to think of Wayne." I told him I likely couldn't keep that promise, because work, at Wayne and in libraries, is the center of my world. It is what comforts me, what gives my life meaning, and what keeps me busy in all times and all situations. Yet I knew he was right.

I needed time away from work and so I began preoccupying myself with other things that made me happy between weeping. Obviously spent a lot of time with my husband. I began to read and catch up on all the things coming from my Google Reader stream - how I've neglected it! I sorted my Tigers tickets. I looked outside at the beautiful day, however, and rejected the sun's glow. Probably should have at least gone for a walk.

The quotes you see at the top were from one of my favorite, if not THE favorite, blog I follow, An Existential Life. Those two were what I got from reviewing my feed yesterday. Today I looked and there is a most fitting quote posted:

"You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it." ~ Adrienne Rich, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics

And so here I am. Coping with the death of a young family member. The family will all be together, but we will still in many ways feel alone without her. The tears will fall, but they change nothing. A friend wrote, "the news that truly shocks is the empty page." So it is. My niece's story was short, but she left us all with her warm, wonderful memories. I want to continue to fill life's pages with her strength. She lived with positivity and joy always. She was the best and we all really miss her.