‘I worry if I’ll have to say goodbye to more loved ones’
(Kurt Grevenberg is a native New Yorker who permanently settled in Baytown in 2015. In this essay, he reflects on the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on his former home, friends and family.)
It was late September 2001 in New York City. For the first time in over two weeks, I made my way from Queens, where I lived, to Manhattan, where I worked. Manhattan, where we were attacked. A sadistic part of me felt a need to see the destruction. And while I knew I would never get anywhere near Lower Manhattan, where the towers crumbled to the ground, I still aimlessly wandered the city streets. The acrid smell of 9/11 lingered, and the people who were normally so vibrant and full of life were now morose and broken. Some were crying.
I found myself in the far east side of Midtown Manhattan, an area that was home to a group of hospitals, including NYU Medical Center, where my mother had once worked. I noticed people gathered at the side of a building, staring at its wall. I walked over to stare with them. I immediately regretted it. The wall was covered with photos of people who were either killed or still missing in the terrorist attacks. Hundreds of them. The crowd gasped and wept at the sheer enormity of it all, and it all became so much more real to me.
I felt sick to my stomach. A policewoman who was standing next to me asked, “Are you OK?” I’m not sure how long it took me to answer, but I eventually said, “No. I don’t think I am.” “Yeah,” she said. “Me, either.” I asked if she had lost anyone in that mess. She didn’t answer. I let her know that while I was never particularly fond of cops — I got the desired reaction when she chuckled — I was so grateful for her and people like her. And I thanked her for being there. She took my hand and said, “We’ll get through it.” Just that simple act of kindness and strength revitalized me. It reassured me that we would indeed come together and get through it. And we did. We were New Yorkers, after all. This wasn’t our first catastrophe. And it wouldn’t be our last.
Once again my beloved home finds itself in the crosshairs of a crisis. Half of me feels guilty for not being there to endure it with my people, and the other half is grateful I’m at a safer distance in my new home in Baytown, Texas. A virus that thrives on infecting people through contact couldn’t have found a better target than NYC, where people spend most of the day literally on top of each other. On the news I see empty streets that normally have thousands of people rubbing shoulders, and it’s haunting and unnatural. I’m terrified for my friends and family who are forced to confront it. Lockdown for me is in a spacious house with a large yard and lots of new-found time to spend in my garden. Lockdown in New York means spending all your time in a tiny apartment. I don’t know how they keep their sanity.
I spend much of my day worrying and checking in with anyone who comes to mind, thinking it’s only a matter of time before it hits close to home. It’s sobering when it does. It came in a Facebook video. She wore a brave face as she informed her friends that she had tested positive for COVID-19, and I felt like I was stabbed in the gut. But in typical New York fashion, she was strong and defiant. As the days went by she updated us regularly, and I came to believe she would beat it. She likes to go dancing, and can’t do so under lockdown. I knew she had it under control when she posted a video of her dancing around her kitchen in a gas mask. New Yorkers have an odd sense of humor.
Unfortunately, after that moment of levity, came tragedy from another source. I heard rumors of a friend who was on a ventilator in Mount Sinai Hospital. Several mutual friends scrambled to find details, and we sadly confirmed it was true. The very next morning, the virus had taken his life. I had learned that he was estranged from his family, and realized he most likely died afraid and alone. I thought of the countless retrofitted refrigerated trucks outside NYC hospitals for unclaimed bodies. I think of my friend in one of them, and I curse the unfairness of it all. I wonder how much more cursing I’ll be doing before all is said and done.
I worry. I worry if I’ll have to say goodbye to more loved ones. I worry what will happen if the coronavirus comes to Houston with the same vengeance it brought to New York. I worry what condition we will be in when we finally get through it. Then I feel a surge of pride with my hometown and how it’s managing this crisis — with dignity and determination. New York is arrogant and harsh. But it is also compassionate and generous, and it confronts every hardship with courage. If it has to bear the initial brunt of this pandemic, so be it.
Then I think of my new home here in Texas. I went through Hurricane Harvey, and I remember that there is no shortage of strength here. It finally occurs to me that this strength doesn’t come from being a New Yorker or a Texan. It comes from being an American. And in a time when one might argue that we have never been more divided, I find it ironic that we are attacked by a mysterious enemy that challenges us to work together for our very survival. I suddenly feel less fear because I know that in this country, we will always do what we have to do to survive. After all, we’re Americans.
Please be safe.
— Kurt Grevenberg
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