When Lives Become Numbers
COVID-19 Has Made Us Numb To Loss
I am an anomaly in my friend group. Because they complain about self-isolation regulations, bars being closed and not being able to go to the gym, while I either stay silent or disagree. Because I do disagree with their moaning. While the economical impact of COVID-19 is beyond my comprehension, I will not agree with people who complain about this from a social point of view. I am glad to stay home, and not just because I’m an introvert, and not just because I’m a writer who can work from anywhere.
I’m glad to stay home because that is what I can do. That is how I can save a life. Because I’m aware that as a twenty-three year old with no previous health concerns, I am likely to be okay if I contract COVID-19. But the people I run into, they might not be. The woman with asthma at the grocery store, the old man I passed on my walk home, my mother when I see her again. I would be okay, but that doesn’t mean I want to go to other places, because other people might not be. I could infect anyone, I could destroy a family, and I would never even know.
Staying home is what I can do. I am not medically trained, I can’t save lives in a hospital like countless heroes are. I don’t deliver groceries, I’m not a landlord who can lower rents. I’m a writer, I work in marketing, but I can stay home. And I want to stay home, as I don’t want to cause a death.
Because I have experienced that. I have had someone so close to me be ripped away, with little warning. I have been left with that person shaped hole in my life, that I desperately try to fill with substances and distraction. I have cried the empty nights, I have spent days waiting to hear them at the door, I have called their voicemail just to hear their voice. I have lost someone. And I would not wish that on anyone, not even people I hate. Losing someone feels like an avalanche, tumbling through your life and growing bigger and bigger until you’re suffocating. You don’t just mourn, you don’t just grieve. You ache. And right now, so many people in the world are aching.
And then others are complaining because they can’t go to a concert, they can’t go on holiday, they can’t graduate with their friends. And I know all struggle is relative, but grieving is not. I am not shaming you for being sad about these things. Be sad. I was sad that my holiday got cancelled. But I also make sure to then remember that people are losing their loved ones, that most of these are things you will do next year or another year. That is not the tragedy, not a lost summer, not a lost birthday party. Because you are losing those things this one year. They are losing every year with that human being. Your big event got postponed or cancelled, and I am sorry. But every single big event that these people have in their lives will bear the hole of the one they lost. They will never get to have them in the crowd.
What has hurt the most in the scope of COVID-19 is watching lives be reduced to numbers. To hear people say
“But only 200 people died today, that is 10 less than yesterday”.
When it comes to people dying it is never “only” and it is never “less”. Because each of those 200 belongs to someone, matters to someone. Each of those 200 is being mourned, their absence from this world is being felt. So don’t use that as an excuse for why you should be allowed to go clubbing or go lie on a beach somewhere exotic. Because they are human beings that died.
I’m not trying to sadden or scare you. I don’t look at the numbers because every time that I do I feel overwhelmed for the hours that follow. You don’t have to know numbers. But if you do look at them, you need to look at them as the human beings that they were and are. Never diminish someone to a number to make yourself feel more comfortable. Never excuse you breaking regulations by the fact that less people died yesterday, because people still died and will continue to.
You are allowed to feel sad about what COVID-19 has changed for you, but you must recognise the bigger picture, you must recognise that your struggle is not unique, and that you are still lucky. Anyone who can read this is still lucky in some way. And when you mourn what you lost to COVID-19, donate a minute of your thoughts to those who lost people, as they deserve our thoughts in this time. Follow regulations because when they’re over, you can know that you never contributed to someone losing a piece of their life, to someone feeling the ground slip beneath them as they hear those dreaded words.
My father is one of hundreds of thousands to die yearly from heart failure. But to me he is one, he is the only one that I need. One in four people die of heart failure, but he was one of them. While we use statistics to learn, we must never use those numbers to replace individuals. Because loss is still loss, and it is agonising to all that remain after.
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