Remembering, and honoring, the neighbors we've lost
We have lost so much, and so many.
We have lost war veterans, Holocaust survivors, doctors and artists. We have lost the woman who taught us to read, the neighbor with the crazy Christmas lights and the nice guy who worked at the deli.
More than 6,000 Long Islanders have died of the coronavirus, a staggering statistic. However, statistics are an inadequate measure of what this virus has taken as it rages on. To truly comprehend the magnitude of the pandemic’s toll, one must listen to the voices of those left behind.
"My mother was more than a number," cries a woman softly into the phone.
"My husband was the life of the party and now he’s gone," a wife repeats over and over.
"The world was not complete without all three of them," says a woman who lost her father, mother and brother in the span of five months.
I am honored to have heard these voices, to be a part of a Newsday team of reporters assigned to write about our fallen Long Island neighbors. In 30 years in journalism, it is the most difficult and THE most meaningful assignment I have had.
The isolating nature of the virus left so many to grieve alone, stripping the bereaved of the cultural rituals that help us cope during our most difficult times. There have been few nonvirtual bedside goodbyes, few large wakes, few safe ways to sit Shiva. In their absence, obituaries have been transformed into important proxies of mourning, one of the few remaining places where survivors can share the ordinary and extraordinary details of their loved ones' lives and deaths.
The sheer volume of the faces staring out from the following pages is a reminder of the magnitude of the tragedy. Yet, it’s the individual snapshots of the lives lost that haunt the most, that illuminate the horror and the humanity behind every death.
It’s the image of the elegant 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who asks the EMTs to wait while she grabs her lipstick for what will be her final ride to the hospital. It’s the motorcycle-riding grandmother who makes a killer marinara sauce. It’s the Special Olympics swimmer who loves taking his girlfriend dancing. It’s the dementia patient who hasn’t spoken in years repeatedly telling her husband she loves him before they die six days apart.
Long Island is united in grief and in remembrance. Every one of the people on these pages was alive a year ago. In a year of such unimaginable loss, we honor those who are no longer with us. It has been our privilege to share their stories.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
