With all his heart

Today is Good Friday in the year of COVID-19. When I was growing up, our Catholic school was closed on Good Friday and we stayed indoors with each other. We had to be quiet from noon to 3pm, the hours during which Jesus suffered and died. It was a somber day and our household took it very seriously. The sense memory of those ritual days with my mother and father and siblings has stayed with me throughout my life, and it’s rushing back today with a particular intensity. So many souls have been lost around the world over the past months and, in NY and NJ where I live, hundreds of people have died every day for weeks now.

We all have to stay inside now because we have been asked to do so.

Governor Cuomo says that when the pressure is on you see what people are really made of. And that we can remain spiritually connected by being socially distanced. He and Governor Murphy say that we are in a war and that what we as citizens do will affect hundreds of thousands of lives.

It seems so little to ask us to stay inside and yet it’s so difficult because we’re separated from those we love. For many people, the severity of the situation hasn’t sunk in and they’re angry that we can’t mingle. They can’t comprehend that our lives have changed so cataclysmically and we can’t go out and celebrate Easter and Passover together. (Inexplicably, a local church is doing a drive-by blessing on Easter Sunday “so people can celebrate this special day, although being deprived from attending church.” Umm, but we’re supposed to stay inside…”Stay at home, save a life.” To slow the spread of the virus. Your actions can affect my health…

A source of light in my day is the email by Dr. Craig R. Smith, Chair, Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief, at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He’s an authority in cardiopulmonary bypass surgery, and helped establish their heart transplant program. He works with hearts. Literally.

Each day during the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Smith takes the time to write and send an update to his faculty and staff about the pandemic response and priorities. He chronicles the lack of surgical masks, protective clothing, available beds, the onslaught of incoming sick patients and death in astonishing, heartbreaking detail. Here is a link:
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/covid-19-update-dr-smith-41020

The arrival of the coronavirus has been nothing short of catastrophic, and the hospital is dealing with demands beyond anything they’ve ever seen. Dr. Smith writes with tremendous compassion as he recounts the sad reality of the daily loss of life and the terrible toll it’s taking on his staff. His beautiful essays cite mythology, T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare and the Bible. I love him.

My father received his medical degree from P&S and our family takes pride in knowing that Dr. Smith is there.