Pictures
An ancient Japanese philosopher once said that, “One look is worth a thousand words.”
I recently saw a picture in the July 21, 2020 edition of the Texas Tribune. It accompanied an article about how crematoriums in the state’s Rio Grande Valley are running overtime dealing with bodies of deceased Covid-19 victims.
The picture, which is actually a collection of three photos, shows two men rolling a body into a crematorium in Donna, Texas; a second photo shows a man standing by an incinerator; and the last photo shows smoke billowing out of one of the two smoke stacks at the facility.
The smoke billowing out of the smokestack reflected an image of “black death” body collectors hauling infected bodies to mass “plague pits” where they were dumped; and when the land ran out, the Pope ordered them thrown in the nearest river.
Body disposal in pandemics has never been a pretty business, although well-paying.
There have been more than 150,000 bodies which have already been disposed of during the current Covid-19 pandemic in the United States—more than in any other nation. Bodies have lined the hallways in intensive care units before being hauled away to freezer trucks for storage until claimed by a loved one or until a county decision was made as to how to dispose of it.
The smoke billowing from that crematorium smokestack was once a human being who walked into the local post office without a mask; or who once attended a large family gathering without a mask; or who once sang at the top of their pre-infected lungs during a church service without a mask; or who once sat on a bar stool in a crowded Texas salon tapping his foot to “there’s no place I’d rather be than right here with my red neck, white socks and blue ribbon beer” without a mask; or who once left behind hospitalized grandparents they infected with the virus by not wearing a mask.
The smoke billowing from that crematorium smokestack was the residue of, most probably, a life well-spent but wasted in its final moments by not taking precautions to avoid the horrible, life-sapping little Covid virus.
The smoke billowing from that crematorium smokestack mirrors the tears of children left behind; the grief of a wife that will never heal; the hug from a brother that will never again be felt; the face of a sister that will never again light up; and the sorrow ridden eyes of parents who in the dusk of their lives pray only that the end will come sweet and peaceful.
The smoke billowing from that crematorium smokestack is from the shallow, skin-thin bodies of those elderly people trapped in nursing home facilities who never understood the calls from politicians in the early stages of the pandemic suggesting that they should be willing to accept the high risk of death posed by the Covid virus for the sake of the economy.
That second smokestack at the crematorium from which no smoke billows is waiting to spread the smoke-dust ashes from the small, defenseless bodies of school children forced back into dangerous classroom settings—sent there by parents under government pressure to get back into a Covid infected chicken n’ sausage producing plant needed to boost the economy.
Those three crematorium photos represent the heartbreak of a nation caused by so many unnecessary deaths—so many of which could have easily been avoided or prevented.
That billowing gut-wrenching, heartbreaking smoke will forever, and ever, be a stain—no, a blight—on the soul of this nation, and will bear witness throughout history of all those stupid motherf..kers who let it happen.