This year has given us no choice but to think about our lives — and the end of them.
The longer the pandemic goes on, the more I feel like Alice slipping into Wonderland. Everything looks the same, just a bit off. Time escapes me no matter how rigid the structures that I impose on my day. Katherine May perfectly described this feeling in a recent Op-Ed: “It was as if these moments were pleated together with a single stitch, the fabric of existence gathering so tightly that my whole life could be drawn together and would pass that way, quite suddenly.” While some people have had a good year despite the coronavirus upending everything, far too many have suffered. Far too many have died. |
Covid-19 has made it nearly impossible to ignore our own mortality, with refrigerator trucks stacked with bodies abutting the edges of parks in the early days and the continuously climbing lines in death toll charts now. Our staff writers and contributors paused this week to probe death further. What is it, really? How do we mourn? How do we look at death as individuals — and as a society? We’re taking a moment to reflect and hope you get the chance to do so as well this holiday season. This newsletter will be off for the next two weeks for the holidays, but we will see you in your inbox again on Jan. 10. I hope your holidays are peaceful. — Alexandra March |
 | | Sean Hogan |
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A Global Congregation of Grief |
 | | Holly Warburton |
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“Where does that leave us, on this wintry day at the end of a year that has all been winter? In the past, I have been embittered by mourning deceased family members from afar, while everyone back home gets together and seeks catharsis in crowded rooms. This time, we are all far apart.” |
The Coronavirus Has Found a Safe Harbor |
“We are making the same deadly mistakes all over again. New cases show the protocols adopted by even the most proactive jails aren’t working. Crowded jails, where social distancing is virtually impossible, are fueling outbreaks both inside and outside of their walls.” |
 | | Protesters held a candlelight vigil after the execution of Alfred Bourgeois.Neeta Satam for The New York Times |
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“His belly begins to twitch and then convulse rhythmically, as mine did, I realize blankly, when I was nine months pregnant and my daughters would jab at my insides with their little fists and feet. That was the precipice of life and this is the precipice of death.” |
Punch After Punch, Rape After Rape, a Murderer Was Made |
 | | Aidan Koch |
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