Thankfully, I personally know no one who has died of the coronavirus.
I do know a couple of people who were struck, and survived. As I write this British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just been moved to ICU. Wow — and he has the best medical attention possible.
In an intellectual way, I feel sympathy for Johnson, but it is fleeting, because I don’t know him.
Among the almost (as of noon Monday) 10,000 American deaths attributed to the virus, one hit me harder than I would have thought.
Eagles kicker Tom Dempsey died at 73, and if you are of a certain age, you remember the longest-ever field goal — 63 yards that gave his team, the Saints, a last-minute win over Detroit in 1970. He became an Eagle the following year and Eagles fans were ecstatic. He was an outgoing, jovial guy and became a fan favorite.
Sympathy is a quality that increases with the intensity of personal connection to another.
“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic,” Russian dictator Joseph Stalin supposedly said, perhaps meaning a million deaths was beyond comprehension. This quote was reported by New York columnist Leonard Lyons before the start of World War II.
At the start of what I call World War III, the “worst case” scenario was for an unimaginable 2.2 million dead Americans, but that projection has declined. A minimum estimate right now hovers in the 100,000 range, which is twice the lives lost in our tragic Vietnam adventure.
That number is hard for our minds to grasp, kind of like the Holocaust. Can you picture 6 million dead?
No, but you can be greatly moved by the testimony of a single survivor. We most easily connect person to person.
The U.S. lost almost 1,500 Americans on Saturday. Can you even imagine that? That is almost the capacity of the Merriam Theater on Broad Street. Can you imagine standing outside and watching a theater full of dead people exiting? Not making a zombie joke here.
I can’t imagine that, so that is why I turn to Dempsey, an athlete who I never met. But I had a connection to him, through the Eagles.
The deaths of many people are listed every day in the obituaries, but we pay no notice except to the ones we had connected with.
In the span of about a recent week, singers Kenny Rogers and Bill Withers died. I’ll bet one of those deaths affected you more than the other. How about Valerie Harper and Mary Tyler Moore? James Garner and Kirk Douglas?
I don’t mean to creep you out, just trying to make the point that a personal connection creates more sympathy and sense of loss.
There are exceptions. When a disaster strikes a faraway area, let’s say Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, aid poured in from across the United States. There was no personal connection other than we are all Americans, and that may have been enough.
Why did that happen? Primarily because TV brought the story of suffering to Americans, making it person to person. That’s why you may feel a tear fall when you read or hear a story about an individual lost American life. The media personalizes it, and it touches you.
We are poised on the brink of a staggering amount of deaths, so many it may be impossible to bury them all with dignity.
The Philadelphia city flag is already at half staff, as is New Jersey’s state flag.
How long will it be before Old Glory is lowered?
HAPPY TUESDAY !!!
Pallie,
What a heart wrencher. You and Christine Flowers on the same day. We have all witnessed death. Some of us have seen too much. I don’t know how medical professional deal with the tragedy. Sure, they find a way to weigh the living against the dying. Me personally, out of the clear ( doom ) I am overwhelmed.
Somebody much smarter than I once said that the Lord only goves us what we can handle.
Tony
Thanks. I am looking for a lighter topic…
a heavier topic would; what will we look like come June or July ? certainly not centerfold material !
Stu, I just read Eagles great Timmy Brown passed away. The Eagles announced it earlier today.
A very touching piece of writing, Stu.
Let us be reminded that between 500,000 and 675,000 Americans died in the 1918-1929 Spanish Flu Pandemic, a terrible wave of sickness that touched virtually every household. Yet in one generation, only a dim memory of that horror remained. It will be thus with this pandemic. A lot of us will die, and then (thanks be to God) life will go on…changed, but life nonetheless.
Thank you and I suspect you are right about societal amnesia. Say “Vietnam” to a millennial or Z, and they say, “great food and I’d like to study there.” They think the Vietnam Wall is like the China wall. 😀
Yep. My son (number three) went to Vietnam for vacation! Talk about the futility of war.
Thanks for serving
Welcome Home
Vince
I didn’t know until the last 5 years or so, guys I worked with side by side in the 60’s through the 80’s were ‘Nam vets? I was amazed! “It’s where you served in ‘Nam, not if” is how they greet each other.
Tom
It’s only futile if you lose.
Stu,
Aren’t Tony and Vince something? You write an excellent piece of a same time
tragedy that we are all part of and you and them leave me speechless. I was just going to say Thanks, Stu, but after thinking this morning and rereading, it was the personal part that stuck in my crawl.
I didn’t know even one of the 343 FF’s who succumbed on 9/11. But I’ll never forget what they were to me. Each September I watch the visuals replayed on TV. I watch so I won’t forget. Especially the faces of those walking with rolled hoseline or axes or other equipment on their shoulders looking up at the smoking buildings they are about to enter. 343 stories never to be told!
It was after 9/11 I began writing of that day, poems, songs, from different perspectives. I still do and will especially watch again this year a spliced together epic called “102 MINUTES THAT CHANGE THE WORLD.”
Any time I see something hard to believe I think of that day, until now.
I believe that the key to your piece is the visuals. Will the pandemic’s be replayed?
Tom
I can’t answer that question. The most shocking 9/11 image for me were bodies falling from the WTC