We Will, I Truly Hope, Get Through This Too
We survived so much in NYC. Can we survive another Trump presidency?
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I haven’t posted on Instagram since June 27, 2021. That was the day I left New York City, my lifelong home, for Seattle. I’d been dreaming of a greener place, a kinder life. It hasn’t disappointed. Spikes of evergreens beautifully pock my view, which also includes a bit of Lake Washington, Mt. Baker and some of the Northern Cascades. My inflatable kayak has become the best thing I’ve ever owned, allowing me to laze around the lake watching bald eagles while drinking in the quiet.
Today, inspired by a colleague who asked me to look at his Instagram, I went through my own. My baby boy, Moose, was in 90 percent of the photos. Those of you who’ve followed me on here or Twitter know how intensely painful his loss has been for me. Ten years of working at home with him by my side created a massive (he was) Moose-sized hole in my life.
Having Xavier, my now 9-month-old puppy, has been a joy. I never thought I could do it again, get another dog — no dog parent does. But Xavier has eased the edges of my grief. I still say hello to Moose each morning when I see his photo on my desk, but the out-of-nowhere serrated pain is gone.
Looking at my Instagram just now brought it back.
But it didn’t just bring back the pain of losing my best boy, it also reminded me of the unendurable events in New York he and I went through together.
The word “unendurable” may be questionable since I clearly made it through that apocalyptic time. But my psyche was damaged by each event. Part of moving to Seattle in fact scared me because — what will I do when the next truly terrible thing happens in New York and I’m not there? It’s likely why I became a journalist. It’s a fucked-up kind of FOMO.
On my Instagram, I came across a post from September 2020. We were at the deadly height of the pandemic in our city. It had been a few months since white, refrigerated trucks had parked themselves near the East River as makeshift morgues — the body count was so high. But on Instagram, I’d landed on a post from Sept. 11, 2020. And rereading my caption to the photo has made me weep: “We will get through this too.”
We would and we did. Surviving Covid, just as 9/11, in NYC was brutal. The isolation, the dead bodies piling up, the terror of getting within a couple feet of someone even in the open on the city streets. Nobody touched. I will never forget begging my friend to please give me a hug with our heads turned far from each other because I was that desperate. Everybody on the subway hid behind masks and sat as far from one another as ridership allowed.
After 9/11, we cried collectively, often on the subway. No one said anything or comforted one another. We all knew we shared the same grief, whether we’d lost people or not.
No one cried on the subway during Covid. It was a cold time. But compounding our pain meant watching helplessly as Donald Trump detached our country from a cure, making absurd claims about the healing powers of an anti-malaria drug as well as the ridiculous “healing powers” of strong lights and bleach.
As New Yorkers, we collectively despised him. We had long known his slumlord ways, his lies, his obnoxious exaggeration of extravagance. None of us wanted more gilded glass buildings tarring our city.
Arriving at the Javits Center and getting my first vaccine jab amid the soldiers keeping order left me smiling absurdly.
Now, as Americans, we watch as our fellow citizens embrace the man who, during his disastrous presidency, not only fleeced them, but told them to drink bleach during the pandemic. Trump has lied, cheated and degraded the military and people with disabilities. His crimes and nastiness have left so many of us trying to understand why anyone still supports him.
He’s not the man Americans perceived him to be on his television show — I’m not sure how many years these people need to realize this. Trump’s TV-persona’s “imposing” self was a prelude to his presidential selfishness and cruelty. He gave tax cuts only to the rich and manipulated onto the Supreme Court the most conservative, life-threatening appointments. Horribly, he declared asylees — who are so desperate to live that they make horrendously difficult journeys to the U.S. — and the press to be enemies of the state.
Please, tell me what he did that was good for you, readers, in case I’m missing something.
As for the demonization of the press, I’ve often wondered what Trump’s supporters would think if they truly only had access to state media — one voice, directed by a dictator, as Trump has expressed he wants to be. Working for years at the Committee to Protect Journalists showed me how deeply awful and soul-sucking this kind of censorship is. Dissenters, or, plainly, truth-tellers, end up jailed, beaten or worse. Readers and listeners are not allowed to see or hear dissenting points of views. But here, in 2024, in the United States, the MAGAs are shouting about “free speech” as they ban books, Black hairstyles and reproductive and gender freedom. The world is topsy-turvy.
I realize I’ve gone from the loss of my babydog to the horrors of 9/11 to the terrors of Covid only to end on Trump as a threat to our society. They may seem like disjointed events or ideas (okay, maybe the grief over my Moose is). But to me, these are ever-present nightmares. Scrolling through Instagram today after so many months, reading “We will get through this too” about Covid on a post about 9/11 made me hopeful. Trump may very well be elected, despite his criminality and unfitness for office.
We will, I truly hope, get through this too.
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February is ripe for dark discontent. But we survived to feel it. Glad there is some distance from the old posts, and also that there can still be a connection in looking back. Thanks for being in the fight. For the best in Moose. May we always.
I hope you are enjoying living in Seattle. Sounds like you are. I've lived in the Seattle area my entire life.