Invasion

Guest Author, Sandra Miller

I had occasion to visit my mother’s gravesite on Mother’s Day, not so much that I was following the rituals of many Americans on that day, but because my brother, who lives in Florida, had asked me to.  He wanted me to release balloons with the message ‘I love you’ at the site on his behalf.  I had no success in getting the balloons, but substituted them for some beautiful white roses.

Growing up in Jamaica one learned at an early age to be fearful of cemeteries.  They were to be avoided at all costs, and if you had to drive by one, there should be no pointing of fingers lest you lose one.  However, these fears are forgotten when you enter Kensico Gardens, the cemetery where my mother was laid to rest.  It occupies a large swath of beautifully landscaped hillside in Valhalla.  It’s a place where, although you are among the dead, among numerous headstones, mausoleums, and grave markers, there is this feeling of peace and tranquility, usually accompanied with a gentle blowing breeze and birds chirping in the trees.

On this Mother’s Day visit, I was accompanied by my son.  We both stood there by the gravesite, each with our own memories of my mother.  After laying the flowers on the grave, we stood there for a while just looking around, marveling at how peaceful it was.  Then, in really looking, I noticed something that struck me as being out of the normal.  I was seeing multiple freshly filled graves.  That sight gave me pause.  How many of those graves were for people lost to the deadly Corona virus?  How many children were mourning the loss of a parent, or parents mourning the loss of a child on this day?  How many were people who had died in isolation, without the friendly face of a loved one?  As I looked out I saw a large area being cleared and landscaped.  How many more people will lose their lives before this pandemic is over?  In that moment, the serenity I was feeling was lost.  Corona had also invaded this space.