About that NYT Front Page yesterday :(

[FirstLight]

read this post on FB, I had to share. I copied but did not use the person's name for her privacy (but apparently she's an artist on Spotify and lives in Brooklyn).

I just needed y'all to read this amazing eulogy:

~~~~~~~
When I saw an image of this front page on the internet, I thought it was from 100 years ago.
And then I got my copy.

Every year on the date, the 3,000 victims of September 11th are read aloud at the World Trade Center.
It takes 3 hours.
If we were to read the names of each person who has died of Covid-19 so far, it would take over 4 days, without stopping.
It would cover each Sunday issue for over the next two years.

Today I read 1% of those names.
Each of those names was allowed half a sentence to describe them.
Half a sentence for a lifetime on the front page of The New York Times.

I picked out some of my favorites:

-“We called him the grand Poobah”

-her backyard birds ate right from her hand

-could fix almost anything

-first black woman to graduate Harvard Law school

-quick with his fists in the ring

-her will was indomitable

-he could spit a watermelon seed halfway across a double lot

-agent who turned on the CIA

-her favorite quote was ‘I am as good as you are, and as bad as I am’

-cancer survivor who lived as a deacon

-nothing delighted him more than picking up the bill

-saved 56 Jewish families from the Gestapo

-could be a real jokester

-thought it was important to know a person’s life story

-maestro of a steel-pan band

-saw friends at their worst and made them their best

-engineer behind the first 200mph stock car

-discovered his true calling when he started driving a school bus

-made the best Baklava ever

-emergency room doctor who died in his husband’s arms

-leader in integrating schools

-architect behind Boston’s City Hall

-shared his produce with food banks and neighbors

-family believed she would have lived the traditional Navajo lifespan of 102 years.

-loved his wife and said ‘yes dear’ a lot

-mother to a generation of AIDS patients

-worked long hard hours and still made time for everyone

-walked across the Golden Gate Bridge on opening day

-liked his bacon and hash browns crispy

-more adept than many knew

-would stay awake the whole night shift because she didn’t want anyone to die alone

-freed from life in prison

-her last words were ‘thank you’
.
.
.

Seven small towns I thought no one else had heard of.
Six women who reminded me of my mother.
Five people my age.
Four holocaust survivors.
Three 9/11 responders.
Two couples who died together.
One person I’ve met.
And a 5 year old girl.

They didn't get a funeral.
They didn't get to say goodbye.

I've been in my apartment for 71 days. I've cried four times.
Three of those times, was while I read this.

Have fun at your barbecue.

[bobbieinok]

1. Thank you for posting ---we must NEVER forget!!

[Ms. Toad]

2. If you have access, go through the interactive version.

Not sure if it is free or not.

Those 1,000 individuals are scattered amidst sillouettes of the other 99,000 unnamed individuals, in a scroll that goes on forever - with a few observations that scroll by every few days. The sillouettes are accurately spaced time-wise so you get visual impression of the increasing intensity of the deaths.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/24/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-100000.html

[FirstLight]

6. wow...just wow

so many stories, one sentence is not nearly enough

I used to write obits for the local paper, this is just....wow...no words

[Ms. Toad]

9. I looked at the front page earlier,

and someone made 100 copies of it to illustrate how may 100,000 was - that actually had less impact on me than the 1000.

But that interactive page that goes on, and on, and on . . .

Do you have a subscription to the times? I've got a subscription through work, but have been reluctant to send people to a page that has a paywall, so I'm curious to know if it is part of their coronavirus coverage (which I think they are providing for free).

[FirstLight]

15. no subscription, but yes it worked for me

I couldnt even get 1/4 down the page though overwhelming and so freakign sad

[Ms. Toad]

22. I scrolled quickly through it -

But not sure I'm ready to go through it reading each name.

Glad to hear access is free.

[Niagara]

21. Thank you for this link.

I was browsing the link and I found someone on the page from the next county over from me and the same age as me.

[tblue37]

3. Yes, it's impossible not to get choked up reading these. nt

[blm]

4. 🕯🕯🕯

[alwaysinasnit]

5. K&R Thank you FirstLight.

[rurallib]

7. When Trump is in prison for life I would donate to pay for people to read

the names and a short description to him until every one of his victims is at least read to him.

[FirstLight]

8. ooooh! nice punishment

and he would be locked in a soundproof room so nobody could hear him try to talk over the reading of the names... It could take years, and woudl surely drive him into mouth-foaming insanity! hell yeah!
I'd pay to be one of the readers!

[virgogal]

19. I agree and also the presidents

of Spain and Italy with very high death rates.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying.

[Evolve Dammit]

11. Thank you for this powerful post. All of us have amazing lives. We need to acknowledge all.

[Grammy23]

12. Thank you for reminding us that every life mattered and now they are gone.

It is easy to get jaded to the numbers. It becomes a defense mechanism against the horror of so many lives taken so cruelly, so quickly. One minute they’re here with us and then, in the twinkling of an eye, they leave us.

They must not die anonymously. Just as victims of other tragedies get remembered, they deserved their moment in time on that front page. As do all the rest deserve recognition.

I never expect tRump to acknowledge or request a special memorial to them. In some ways that would be the ultimate insult. But someone will come along who is appropriate to the task. We need to remember them and never ever forget why they died. Our mission should be to try to work so no one ever has to be sacrificed as they were. And history needs to record why and who was at fault. It is only fair. tRump made his mark on history. Let all who come after us know what he did.

[FirstLight]

16. + a MILLION!

[Delphinus]

17. Yes.

And I think that is what most of us want from our lives - to know that something of what we did mattered. That we were heard; that we made a difference in some small way.

[keithbvadu2]

13. Trump could read one or two of those names between each hole of golf.

Trump could read one or two of those names between each hole of golf.

[CaptYossarian]

14. My eyes are sweating now.

[flamingdem]

18. This one touched me a lot

-would stay awake the whole night shift because she didn’t want anyone to die alone

[Niagara]

20. Thank you for sharing this, FirstLight.

We will never forget the people who died from this awful virus.

[crickets]

23. I have run out of words for the sense of loss.

[malaise]

24. What a beautiful post

Rec

[FirstLight]

25. thanks, I read it first thing today and it's been haunting me all day...