Items

• 2020

  A year of recovery

  Our adult son died of cancer at the end of 2018. We were devastated. Our lives were disrupted and upended, while everyone else went on as if everything was normal. Anyone who has lost a family member or friend knows what this is like. Way too many people found out in 2020 what that is like. In 2020, other people were inconvenienced. A lot. I’ll acknowledge that it was tough on everyone, but it’s nothing compared to losing a loved one. When we realized that the pandemic disruption really didn’t faze us, we realized that we were going to be OK. We had faced the unbearable; this was trivial by comparison. So was losing my job. We were privileged that 2020 and 2021 gave us a chance to reset, to recharge, to reboot. To make ends meet, I now work and live on another continent, away from my wife. It’s incredibly difficult. We’ve dealt with worse situations. We’ll be OK.
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  2020-06-04

  The Doctors and the Community

  I'm submitting a picture of doctors, including my uncle and members of the community gathered outside of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital, to celebrate the discharge of a patient who beat Covid-19.
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  2020-03-29

  Paranoia to Peace

  I struggled with anxiety around the time the news said there was a pandemic going on, and I healed as time went on and the world around me played a part in that.
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  2021-04-14

  Social Distance Powwow - Prayers for All Nations

  Social Distance Powwow is a Facebook page created so Indigenous Peoples can virtually powwow together. Bear Cadman, a member of Dine Nation, submitted this photo of him and wrote "Prayers for all nations. Prayers for peace and healing. Love will win. Prayers for all of you the 5 finger nation."
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  2021-01-07

  An Open Letter from Indigenous Peoples to Indigenous Peoples in Brazil on Surviving COVID-19

  This entry shares an open letter titled "Indigenous Peoples to Indigenous Peoples in Brazil." The letter includes artwork of Indigenous artists, to encourage, uplift, support, educate, and communicate about solidarity and strength of Indigenous communities. The open letter includes historical information, words on Acts of Resistance, and Acts of Healing. The webpage and downloadable letter/PDF are available in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. This is important to capture because it is created by Indigenous Peoples for Indigenous Peoples, shared publicly via the Internet. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/una-carta-abierta-de-los-pueblos-indigenas-del-norte-los-pueblos-indigenas-de-brasil-sobre https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/carta-aberta-dos-povos-indigenas-do-grande-norte-aos-povos-indigenas-no-brasil-sobre-o-covid https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/carta-aberta-dos-povos-indigenas-do-grande-norte-aos-povos-indigenas-no-brasil-sobre-o-covid
• 
  2020-10

  Family Inheritance

  My grandmother passed in July 2020, a few months after the Covid-19 pandemic began in the United States. She left behind a lot of miscellaneous things, including a number of family heirlooms that I have inherited. When we were packing up her trailer and storage containers, we had totes upon totes filled with family documents, awards, newspaper clippings, objects, and photographs. I feel as if I have my own personal archive of our family within these totes. I can't help being emotional about these things I now possess and grateful that my grandmother was a family-history hoarder. I can carry her memory on by taking care of them. One of the various objects was this letter/certificate in a frame, giving thanks and recognition to my great-grandfather for his military service after he had passed. I don’t know much about the paper itself, it seems pretty common and not a unique letter, but it was something nice and surprising to find within the boxes.
• 
  2020-11-15

  The Healing Power of Music

  My friend Sarah who currently lives as St. Mary's University sent me pictures of the way she gets through her anxiety which is with music. The pictures that she provided show that the Healing Power of Music is a way to escape all the chaos that is happening in our lives around us. This shows when there is no where else to turn music always seem to have your back by providing comfort.
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  2020-10-01

  Marcellus Morris, Community Organizer and Diversion Counselor

  Marcellus Morris is a community organizer and diversion counselor in Hempstead, NY. Through Reign 4 Life and other initiatives, he works with at-risk youth toward
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  2020-09-21

  Loss in a COVID World

  I believe this is a point of interest to talk about, since it’s likely that many will wonder, out of innocent curiosity, what it’s like to lose someone in a time of crisis. I should describe it as transcendental. May your soul be touched. My beloved mother didn’t die from COVID-19. She had been unknowingly battling cancer for several years, and had it diagnosed at its most lethal stage. I still shake my hands at the doctors who had ignored her concerns for all this time, because maybe she would still have been here if it weren’t for them. But how would that affect me? Would things remain the same at home? I have to say, I shudder at this thought, too. Colon cancer, which metastasized in the liver. She passed from liver failure in the later part of this year, 2020. I, the foolish child, was so preoccupied that I couldn’t understand why my uncle woke me at 4 am in the morning that day. With a classic sleepy rub of the eye, I told him, “I have a math test today.” And if it hadn’t been for the pain in his eyes, I wouldn’t have gotten up at all. There she was, lying eerily still in her bed, but she was also gone. As the people around me sobbed and turned away, all I could do was stand and stare. It felt like something was out of place. I felt out of place. If you could try to imagine it, remain perfectly still as you are and think of yourself exiting your body. Look around you without looking. That’s how it felt, everything slightly blurry by the darkness, lightness in my feet as if I were floating, a static, metal taste in my mouth, the sounds of sobbing flooding my ears, I couldn't handle it. I started to cry, and buried myself in the crook of my brother’s chest for support. To be in the unknown, and lose what you have, is the most frightening experience I wish for nobody else to have gone through. The pain is truly insufferable… but the healing process counts for so much of who I define myself as now, that I couldn’t imagine the year going any other way. The funeral was held the following sunday. It too was such a different experience. We took many long, empty roads to reach the cemetery. Seeing few cars on the road is commonplace for such a road, but to see none at all was creepy. I relinquished my thoughts to sleep. Upon our arrival, I put my mask on and stood before 50 some odd people who had come to see my mother off. That’s right, I thought comfortably, Mom was very well loved. The notion was reassuring. We exchanged hugs and hellos and sorrys, all the usual pleasantries you would expect at an event not so pleasant, and made our way to the casket for the gathering to take place. I’ll leave the eulogy I wrote here, in case you were curious and thought, I wonder what this stranger said at their mother’s funeral, because this is expected when you are here to read about losing a loved one. Finally, when all was said and done, condolences were given again. This time, though, I hardly recognized anyone. It must’ve been the masks that obstructed our faces, because I saw the attendees, and they saw me, but it was still so unfamiliar. The later part of that day I spent confused. I suppose that’s how we start when we learn to adjust, which I did. Presently I am still healing, but it’s not so bittersweet when I think of her, moreso sweet than bitter. The metal taste in my mouth begins to wear off, and I am feeling free. I hope she also feels free. And I hope this provided the insight you were looking for when you came across this page. We all love and lose in the end. Focus your energy towards healing, and you will learn to grow with the changes.
• 
  0202-10-08

  Time to Slow Down and Reflect

  What I have learned the most through COVID 19 is how much hate there is in the world. I am a miniscule piece of this planet and if I can strive and share a positive attitude, I would want that for everyone else. Life isn’t perfect, but we can try to be more respectful, caring, and understanding of others. This time of quarantine has really shown me how much I needed to slow down. Slow down and really reflect and meditate what is truly important to me now, and what is important to me and for my future. The hate that we focus on in our society comes from years and years of hurt and hatred. But it’s time for a change; it’s time for us to learn about each other and get to a point where we can all respectfully understand each other. You can never understand what everyone is going through, but they go through it every single day. It’s important to make sure others aren’t alone, and that healing takes time. The constant grind that we live going to work, being social, going to school, and traveling gets tiresome and the quality time of it all gets drowned by the stress and drama. We can use this time of quarantine to stop and realize what truly is important for our health: mental, physical, and spiritual.
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  2020-05-18

  Covid as a collage

  I wanted to make something that was colorful and cheerful to remind people of the good things that are still happening in the world and that it is okay to find a light even in the darkest of times. None of this is to take away from the grim situation we are facing on a global level. It is hard to ignore the lack of medical supplies, the millions of people who have lost their jobs and that the economy is at a historical low point. I want to continue to help in any way I can, focus on the positive and hope that we as a nation can come together and beat this pandemic.
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  2020-05-10

  Through Chinese Social Media -- 4

  I’m a study-abroad student. Due to the virus, I had to stay at home in New York. I got the update of the virus through Chinese social media, and I think it is really interesting. I’m going to share some posts from Chinese social media about the virus. Those two weeks, China holds an online concert, “Believe in the Future,” steaming on the social media. It is the largest online concert in the Chinese music industry. The concert invited more than hundreds of celebrities to do cloud performance. The goal of the concert is to bring hope and heal the heart. There is no advertising and no copyright, all things free. The following is one recorded part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIeVt0vUpGM
• 
  04/22/2020

  "It’s OK to Find Humor in Some of This"

  This is an article about all the memes surfacing about the coronavirus, and whether or not it's okay to make jokes about what is going on. # #
• 
  2020-04-25

  "Heroes We Need" Street Art, New Orleans, LA

  Medical professionals with masks, hairnets, gloves, and syringes spray-painted on boarded-up doors on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. Businesses along Frenchmen and throughout the French Quarter boarded up their doors and windows at the beginning of the COVID-19 stay-at-home-order.
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  04/03/2020

  Can faith healing work by phone? Charismatic Christians try prayer to combat the coronavirus.