Author’s note: This is the first of a series of articles on the perspective gained from the coronavirus, meditations from a generation’s first experience of sheltering in place.
The neighbors are walking, and they never walk. They got an inflatable pool and are outside in lawn chairs, and they’re never outside. The yard is manicured and the bushes are well-shaped, and the house is pressure washed—even the driveway. There is a newness in the air.
But we don’t have jobs.
We can’t go out.
We aren’t really alive.
There is a great TV show called White Collar, and in it one of the characters, Sarah Ellis, fakes her own death. One night, on the roof of the FBI building, the hum of Manhattan traffic almost drawing out her voice, she listens to the busyness below, and says the most depressing thing is even though she is virtually dead, nothing has changed.
When faced with her own mortality, she is shocked at how little her life seems to matter.
But would she feel better if the world came to a grinding stop?
With the coronavirus outbreak, that’s exactly what happened.
Whether that response was necessary is above my pay grade and certainly too controversial a topic for this humble column.
Whether it was worth the price paid by our economy is also out of our reach, at least on this page.
The fact of the matter is, we are all practicing a communal death.
If one of us died, as Sarah pointed out, the world would go on.
If ten of us died, the world would go on.
If three thousand of us died, we would pause for a moment of silence and then put up an expensive monument.
But then, the thing that got our attention the most, was a whisper and a shadow, an invisible enemy of unknown strength, an angel of death hovering over our houses and neighborhoods.
In response, in the darkness of the night, we have each grabbed our own talisman.
Some clutch their science close to their hearts, face masks bound tight, hoping to earn a passover by their medical diligence.
Some grasp at their 401ks, straining to save every last penny from market deterioration.
Some clutch their youth and vigor, dead-set on outrunning the demon angel.
Some throw themselves upon the mercy of God or a higher power, placing their trust in Him.
Suddenly, nationwide commerce stopped. Miami murders stopped.
It’s as if the whole nation, even the whole world, had a gun to its head.
We can’t go back to a “normal.”
Some will try, but they will inevitably be visited by the death angel again with panic in their faces and fears in their hearts. But their neighbors, who stared their mortality in the face during the coronavirus pandemic of 2019, will face him again anew, confident in the meaning of their life and the purpose of their death.
A few days ago, a Florida man dressed up as the grim reaper and stalked beaches in protest of their reopening. I don’t think even he understood how symbolic he was.
As the shock subsides and the hum of traffic resumes, let’s take a few weeks and reflect. After all, we’ve only got one life to live.
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” ~Psalm 20