Greater Than Numbers

"Something med school did not cover

Someone's daughter

Someone's mother

Holds your hand through plastic now

Doc, I think she's crashing' out

And some things you just can't speak about"

 - Epiphany, by Taylor Swift 

I remember the first time I had the breath knocked out of me, literally, as a child. My grandmother worked at a school, and when my sister and I would visit her there on days or times without classes, we'd look forward to having the playgrounds all to ourselves. My sister and I were swinging from monkey bars and tree branches, and there was this one tree in particular with a long, straight branch which had been worn smooth by the hands and behinds of countless children. I clambered onto this branch and hung upside down from my knees. My long hair swung around my face. I reached my arms towards the ground, which was maybe about a foot away from my fingertips. Then, I fell. My legs slipped and I fell flat on my back. The wind was knocked from me, hard. My sister's face hovered over me as I tried to breath. It felt as though my lungs had been flattened. I gasped, "I can't breath." My sister disappeared. Of course, to be able to speak at all was proof that I could in fact breath, but to my around-seven-year-old mind, all I could register was panic at this unknown feeling. I heard my sister's feet, running, heard her say, "Sonnet can't breathe," heard a second pair of feet join hers when suddenly my Mom was pulling me up into her arms. I was gasping now, choking on air but breathing.

It's such a clear memory. The smoothness of the tree branch, the unexpected fall, the immediate flight of my sister in search of help, and the safety of my mother's arms even as air filled my lungs and the world became right once more.


On September 11th, most Americans recall the day they had the breath metaphorically knocked out of them, the day the news came about a plane crash, then a second one, then the world watching as the twin towers fell. There was fire and smoke and chaos. There was confusion and fear. There was so much loss.

As a country, we had the breath knocked out of us. We suffered a loss close to 3,000 lives in one day. Now, with Covid-19, the novel Coronavirus, the loss in the US is over 300,000, yet in so many ways this ever-climbing loss has been so utterly different in how it has happened, how we as a nation (let alone the world) have responded, and how we feel it. There has been misinformation, fear and anger, losses of so many things, and finally, an overall sense of exhaustion. We as a nation are not rallied together against the virus as we were against the violence of 9/11. We're divided over politics, and over all the arguments of fake news and freedoms which surge around them. 

I have a friend who works in nursing homes, providing music therapy. At least she did, until the doors of every nursing home were shuttered in early March. For her and her team, the battle has been not only to keep germs away from the elderly, who are a vulnerable population, but to bring hope. People with dementia are dying of heartbreak, not understanding that the reason no one is visiting them anymore is to keep them safe, but rather, believing they are unloved. There is no good answer for how to keep people safe from both a virus and loneliness, though my friend has continued to try, singing from outside windows with her guitar when allowed, and asking again and again for safe alternatives, anything to let the residents have a reprieve of music, which is implemented to improve cognition. She seeks workarounds even while understanding the closed doors; when she wants to visit her brother she first quarantines, since he's battling cancer and any virus is extremely dangerous, let alone a new one. Overall for her, as for many, the loss has been felt not just in deaths but in isolation and deep loneliness. 

Therefore, the toll and its ripple effects are greater than 300,000, and still it's difficult to comprehend. Perhaps, in some ways, it's a blessing that many people feel numb from the time and magnitude of it, or else we might be collectively crushed under the weight of this staggering loss. 

I know people who have had the virus and it wasn't bad, and some who are still dealing with effects long afterwards. For myself, I'm fairly hopeful that if I contracted it, I would be alright, seeing as how I have a runner's strong lungs and a generally fit immune system (though in reality, I have no way of knowing this for sure). But what if I gave it to my coworker who is immune compromised? Or the one who is more elderly? There is an ethical responsibility at stake. More than ever, my faith walks hand-in-hand with a practicality stemming from compassion. 

I mourn for the loss of life, for the fatigued healthcare workers, and for the children whose lives are forever altered by this event. Yet if I'm honest, I don't mourn as deeply as a number like 300,000 deserves. I mourn that we do not mourn more collectively; that this time continues to be dividing rather than uniting. 

Back in March, April, and May, I expected the virus to be gone quickly. I didn't think it was such a big deal, and even that the general public was perhaps overreacting. But it's gone on, and on, and long-term effects have been shown, and people have died and died and died. It's an event which has marked history, and everyone living through it. 

So, may we, the weary, not grow weary of compassion. May we be able to look at this time not as a division, but as a time when we collectively had the breath knocked out of us and were able to get back up as a nation, together. May we hope, and help, and heal. United.