This morning, I cried while watching Governor Andrew Cuomo’s morning press conference, he said that 799 people died in New York City yesterday and that 7,067 people in New York have died to date from the coronavirus Pandemic.

I’d like to take a minute at 1 p.m. (EDT) to be silent in honor and memory of those who died, here and elsewhere. Please join me if you wish. I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute or so and be still.

I don’t know the totals for the rest of the country, but people anywhere are welcome to join in this very brief and simple memorial.

People have died in every state in the United States, they deserve to be acknowledged as well. It is difficult to grasp.

I am ashamed to admit that this is the first time I took a minute to grieve for the many thousands of people whose lives are being taken by this devastating disease.

It is difficult to grieve for strangers, easier to think of them as fellow human beings, easier to see this minute as a sign of our humanity and community.

I feel that we do need one another, we do need to step outside of ourselves to find love and empathy, the highest form of humanity. It is true that we are all in this together.

Amidst all the confusion and argument, it’s easy enough to forget that these are the lives of individual people we are talking about – our friends, our neighbors, our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, lovers and partners.

I did know a few of the dead, I saw their names online, but only a fraction.

I would ask the people reading this to think of these deaths and remember these people, most of whom we don’t know and will never know.

Thank you.