A Year of Loss

Photo by Andreas Weiland on Unsplash

Unlike September 11 or Pearl Harbor, the date the COVID-19 pandemic started is imprecise. Since there was not one day when the death and suffering was incurred, acknowledgements of its one year anniversary vary from the initial cases in December, 2019, to the first US death on February 6, 2020, to the World Health Organization's declaration of a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.

For me, the “start” of the pandemic was March 17, 2020, one year ago today. The day we shut down our office and implemented a mandatory work-from-home policy. Thinking back on it, that was the day I realized how serious the virus was, while still grossly underestimating its impact. What I assumed would be a few weeks of zoom calls has lasted a full year.

Measuring what we’ve lost in that year is virtually impossible. The loss of life is the most empirical and solemn metric of the virus’s toll. But that estimate almost surely under-counts the actual lives lost. Further, total deaths is a crass measurement used by the evening news — as if mere body count enables us to compare the scale of different tragedies. Coronavirus is one of the deadliest events any of us have faced in our lifetimes, so measuring it by number of deaths, like a plane crash or earthquake or fire, seems oddly insufficient.

Then there are measurements of loss that directly pertain to the illness — how many have caught the virus, how many days of work were lost to recovery, how many fell seriously ill, how many required hospitalization. Again, all these measurements are staggering. Really beyond our capacity to understand. Indeed, they are so large that everyone has felt their effects. My immediate family just weathered our first COVID case and the uncertainty and isolation that came with it.

But there is a next tier of loss that doesn’t often make headlines. Not the loss of life, but the loss of what makes life worth living. Time with our friends and family. The celebration of birthdays and anniversaries, baptisms and bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings and funerals, commencements and graduations. Attending a concert, picnic or sporting event. Having chance conversations with co-workers in the break room, a lunch with an old friend, or a beer to welcome the new hire. The networking events, trade shows and event receptions that punctuated professional life. These are the rituals and routines that enable us to both strengthen our existing social ties and forge new connections. They are what bind us together as humans. It is perhaps not surprising that, under these circumstances and deprived of these social interactions, our other “loss” this year has been a measure of our civility and empathy. The end of 2020 felt like a nadir of tolerance and understanding.

But amidst all this loss, I feel hope. The trend lines feel like they are pointed in the right direction. With infection rates plummeting, vaccinations accelerating, and restaurants, businesses and schools gradually re-opening, there is cause for cautious optimism. A feeling that, even with all the remaining uncertainty of new variants, life may actually get back to normal. Further, as is true with any loss, its counterintuitive corollary gift is it helps you appreciate what you have. This year has made me value my wife and kids more. Appreciate my friends and extended family more. Enjoy my co-workers and colleagues more. Cherish the smallest opportunities to support, connect and celebrate everyone around me. Because you don’t fully appreciate things until they are gone. Hopefully, that is something we can all take away from this year of loss.