This Is Us
In Conclusion
How we talk to the dead
I went to the cemetery the other day, not for any particular reason other than we are still allowed to go to cemeteries, at least for now. Ordinary funeral gatherings are not permitted at this moment here in Los Angeles, a city of four million people that spreads out over 469 square miles. I could not find the number of deaths due to Covid-19 within city limits, but Los Angeles County has lost 848 people to this pandemic. By the time you read this, more will be gone.
I’m from Hunterdon County, a rural area in New Jersey that takes up nearly as much space as my adopted city but contains about 3,875,000 fewer people. The biggest thing to ever hit Hunterdon County was the 1935 Lindbergh baby murder trial, after which they electrocuted a German immigrant despite evidence that he didn’t do it. Pretty much nothing happened before that or after that. Good public schools, though.
Twenty-one people in Hunterdon County have died from the coronavirus. I do not know if the cemeteries are still open back home, where the woods are blooming and the backyard gardens are in flower. A few weeks back, my hometown friend left a rabbit hutch open on her farm for five minutes. This week, her kids got to hold baby bunnies for the first time.
