Virus: We mourn most those we knew best

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?