My mom was one of those people that just drew others to her. She loved to laugh, joke and get together with her many friends. But though her hands and joints would flare up periodically, nothing would stop her from making her children’s favorite foods when they visited or hugging and holding her granddaughter tight. This meant she was immunocompromised and part of a population that is especially vulnerable to this disease. My mom had also been fighting rheumatoid arthritis for many years.
Nine days later she lost her battle to COVID-19. All we could do for the mom who gave us everything is tell her how much we loved her and hope that somehow, she could hear us. On a day when we would usually shower her with gifts and take her out to lunch, my family huddled around our phones and tablets as the nurse showed her to us over video chat. This Mother’s Day, my mom was sedated and on a ventilator. Let’s think of them with wet eyes and a high heart. These are just some of the people who have been taken from us, even as they have left us much to remember them by. It’s not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be.
That’s the goal of this list: to acknowledge the remarkable and joyful lives of some of those we have lost. Maybe we can be better at celebrating life even as we’re saddened by its loss. But we all, at one time or another, have reason to mourn. We have no roadmap for this new territory. It’s a book of large truths disguised as small ones: “I remember,” he writes, “those times of not knowing if you feel really happy or really sad.
In his jubilant and revivifying memoir, I Remember, the artist and writer Joe Brainard tabulated all the little things that can come to shape how we think about life. There can always be at least a glimmer of joy in remembering things that people gave us while they were here.
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