NYC honors those lost to COVID-19 in online live memorial
Images of New Yorkers lost to the COVID-19 pandemic are projected on to the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday evening as New York City honors lives lost to the pandemic on the anniversary of the one year anniversary of the city's first confirmed death of COVID-19 Credit: Getty Images/Stephanie Keith
As Carolina Juarez Hernandez recalled the East Harlem father she had lost to COVID-19, images of some of the thousands who perished along with him in the pandemic were projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
Those black and white pictures marked the one-year anniversary of the first confirmed COVID-19 death in New York City — an 82-year-old woman in Brooklyn with emphysema.
Shortly after she died, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to shut down the city’s schools, restaurants and bars. By late March, New Yorkers were dying of the virus by the hundreds daily — so many that hospitals put refrigerated trailers in their parking lots as makeshift morgues.
More than 30,000 New Yorkers, including Hernandez’s father Francisco Juarez-Garcia, were lost — a tragedy commemorated in a "COVID-19 Day of Remembrance, " a live online ceremony hosted by the Mayor’s Office Sunday evening.
"It’s a number we can barely imagine," de Blasio said. "That’s more New Yorkers lost than in World War II, Vietnam, Hurricane Sandy and 9/11 put together."
The city became an epicenter of a pandemic that has since claimed the lives of more than 534,000 Americans, including more than 6,100 Long Islanders.
Dealing with the grief over the loss of so many, the mayor invoked the words of Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.
"No matter what, nobody can take away the dances we've already had," de Blasio said in Spanish and in English. " … Every single one of them, everyone we’ve lost, what they did goes on, what they contributed, what they created, the love they gave goes on."
For Hernandez, she said she has come to realize that the best way to honor her father is "to be the best version of myself."
In her home, the family keeps a small altar with her father’s ashes, a lit candle, flowers, water and a shot of tequila. Whenever her mother makes one of his favorite dishes, she leaves a tiny plate for him.
"It reminds me that our grief will never fully go away, but neither will our love," said Hernandez, a mother of a toddler. " … It’s so painful to remember, but there are so many things I will never forget."
The live ceremony, which was interspersed with the sound of high winds and wailing sirens, included live performances by the New York Philharmonic, gospel music artist Hezekiah Walker and The Love Fellowship Choir. The event was livestreamed on social media and online.
