Death of Self.

It was only weeks ago at the onset of our current dystopian existence when I read that fateful article in the Atlantic, whose author boldly stated that by the time this is all over, we will all have known someone who has died from COVID-19.

I scoffed at the time. “What an exaggeration.”

The voice inside my head had spoken, so it must be true. After all, there’s no other entity we give more credence to than our internal narrative, voiced by the tiny demon who takes up residence in the deepest chambers of the mind and whispers tales that either serve to stroke our egos or set fire to it. We, the weak humans, are unable to discern truth from falsehood of course.

My own personal demon was forced to swallow those words not long after. Her ego may as well have been rammed by a semi-truck for all the accounts of being wrong in the last few months alone.

I’ve been surrounded by news of death lately. At first, unfiltered details seeped through television, on Twitter, through constant notifications flaring up on the Citizen app. Every single conversation, from idle work chatter to Signal group chats, alluded to the coronavirus. It’s inevitable. There was no escape.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings have become a national, nay, international treasure: millions are tuning in every day to get the latest updates from our unofficial COVID hero. Cuomo is cool, calm and collected to the core, possessing a level-headed nature that, coupled with a poker face, delivers speeches on the hundreds of deaths every morning punctured with quips about his younger brother Chris or missed dinners with Grandma. Speeches that give us something we desperately need: hope. He’s a leader who knows how to maintain calm among the masses in the face of absolute turmoil.

My day-job has been filed down to something akin to word-smithing. If I see one more iteration of “now, more than ever” plastered on another corporate social advertisement, I am going to…mutter irritably under my breath and perhaps send a whiny Slack message to whichever poor coworker is willing to lend an ear to my trials. I simply don’t have the energy to scream.

Deaths. It began with my eldest uncle, my Boro Mama. A true hero, who knew exactly what he was getting into when he returned to the pharmacy to dispense medicine to those who sought help, because there was no one else. In spite of the fact that he had exactly 1.5 lungs, due to Stage IV lung cancer. In spite of the fact that he had experienced open heart surgery — twice. We’ve lost him.

And yet, we were robbed of the right to grieve because only a week later, one of my best friend’s father passed to the same disease. Another icon of the community, a pillar to another family.

From there, the waves would not stop crashing to allow us pause, a moment to reflect or at the very least gasp for air. An acquaintance’s father. A forgotten friend. A neighbor’s only parent — she was now an orphan in her mid-twenties. An old high school buddy’s dad. The smiling ladies who ran the cash register at a local supermarket, just blocks away from my front door.

Deaths. It continues on with fear. Fear for friends who work in healthcare, fear for their sanity. Are they okay? How can they be?

Fear for the young people scanning my groceries during my once-a-week venture outside of the home, where every amble down the street is a risk that leaves my heart pounding with terror. Because when I return, I’m returning to a mother who possesses the very autoimmune conditions that are frequently chirped by newscasters as putting an individual “at-risk.”

Fear for those who have lost more than a loved one. They’ve lost a future. Opportunities. The inability to grieve, to reflect.

Deaths. They say creating habits, creating routine is what helps to create a new-and-improved version of you. The thing is, the final death in this terrifying experience is the death of just that — you. Of the “you” that you’ve always pictured yourself to be, until challenged otherwise. Who will we emerge as, once all is said and done? Can we imagine ourselves to resemble the people we were in January 2020?

Mine is a singular perspective out of the millions, billions of folks who are living very different lives these days. This is the perspective of someone who, though I have suffered loss and though I grieve, albeit silently, has a home. A roof over my head. Food on my table. Money – I’m making more money that I ever have in my life. I can provide for my parents. I can donate to every charity that passes my line of vision. I can fast for Ramadan, no problem, because I can.

It helps, sometimes, to look at the silver lining. But it’s impossible to look at the silver lining every day.There’s sunshine after the rain, but one is obliged to feel the rain soaking through the linen covering our arms and legs. Let it soak us, let it drown us as we are doing, as though we have a choice.

I haven’t cried in a long time. Waking up to dreadful news regularly has left my stomach doing permanent somersaults and my heart beating erratically, but I don’t cry. The tear ducts seem to have dried up awhile ago.