I Cry for All Those We’ve Lost; No Tears Left for Trump.

The names come at you in torrents, but it’s the photos and the short, simple biographies that torment, and tear me apart.

. . .Kious Kelly, 48, NYC ER Nurse; April Dunn, 33, Baton Rouge, Advocate for Disabled; Kenneth Sauders III, 43, Decatur, GA, Civic Leader; Abraham Vega, 48, Dallas, County Sheriff; Willie Levi, 73, Waterloo, Iowa, Turkey Processing Plant worker; Robbie Walters, 84, Sacramento, Police Officer/Legislator; Elvia Ramirez, 17, Fargo, ND, high school senior; Anthony M. Hopkins, 70, Elizabethtown, KY, Vietnam War Veteran/Purple Heart Recipient & Postal Worker. . .

Reading through the New York Times latest “Portraits of Grief” — modeled after the more than 2400 brief obituaries of those we lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks — is a profoundly sad experience. Entitled, “Those We’ve Lost,” the COVID portraits of grief number 100 times as many as those the Times meticulously assembled 19 years ago. That’s as of today — nearly 100 times as many human lives lost — from COVID 19, as were lost when the Two World Trade Center towers came tumbling down. By the time of next year’s 20th Anniversary of 9/11, COVID-related deaths in the United States could approach the unimaginable total of 500,000, or nearly 200 times the number of those who perished on 9/11. Let that sink in.