This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated June 18, 2021
On the evening of Saturday, June 12, members of the community gathered at Shore Road Park for a vigil organized by Bay Ridge Cares to honor neighbors lost to COVID-19. It was an extremely meaningful event to come together as a community and memorialize the victims this pandemic has claimed and to acknowledge those who are still mourning the loss of loved ones.
I am a member of the Bay Ridge Cares Board of Directors, I was part of the organizing committee for the vigil, and I read a poem I wrote for the event. It meant so much to work with members of the Bay Ridge Cares team to present this event. Our organization’s motto states that we are “neighbors dedicated to making our community a better place by doing all the good we can, in all the ways we can, for as many as we can,” and the COVID vigil truly embodied those words.
For so many who have been touched so personally by this disease, the grieving process continues, even as we begin to come out the other end of this pandemic and slowly transition to a new normal as a society. This felt like the right time to remember what our community has been through the past fifteen months, while providing a community memorial for those who lost loved ones.
Many attended simply to be among neighbors and pay their respects. Family members of victims came, some bearing photos of their loved ones, and told us how they were never able to have a funeral.
Father Sauer of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Rabbi Crystal of the Bay Ridge Jewish Center, Father Makris from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church, and Pastor David Aja-Sigmon of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church shared prayers and words of hope, while Imam Mohamed Elbar of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge sent along his best, as he was unable to attend.
A string quartet played throughout the event and vocal performances of inspirational songs bookended the beginning and end of the evening. In addition to the Bay Ridge Cares board members, several volunteers from the community, who came on the day of the memorial to help set up the site for the vigil, made it a truly communal event.
“For so many who have been touched so personally by this disease, the grieving process continues, even as we begin to come out the other end of this pandemic and slowly transition to a new normal as a society.”
As per New York Times COVID data, nearly 200 residents of Bay Ridge have been lost to COVID. Members of the community submitted the names of 90 loved ones lost to the virus and each name was printed on a heart that was displayed in the field where the vigil took place. Seeing all the names and space it took to display them all made clear the huge impact this pandemic had throughout our community.
Throughout the program, the names of each loved one submitted were read aloud as an LED candle attached behind the heart of the corresponding name was lit. Those in attendance to honor a loved one could take the heart with their name on it at the conclusion of the night and for the hearts that were not taken, Bay Ridge Cares will work to get them to the families of that person.
Nurses and representatives of EMS also spoke, sharing their recollections of just how difficult the most trying times of the pandemic were and relaying to grieving family members how they did all they could to care for their loved ones in their final days.
As the rates of COVID infection, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to fall to levels we have not seen since the pandemic was first becoming a reality in early 2020, and we see things begin to reopen, we need to take pause, both to remember those who are not here because of COVID and to ensure we ease back into normal in a safe manner.
The loved ones of those we have lost to COVID will be the first to tell you that the virus is not completely behind us yet and we still need to be careful. We owe it to those who have borne the heaviest burden of COVID, to follow the current guidelines as we gradually emerge from the pandemic.
