In March 2020, my husband and I moved from South Bronx to a picture- perfect region in the country—the Hudson Valley—memorialized by painters and poets; it was a patchwork of green trees and yellow fields, majestic hillsides, storied waterfalls, and little homesteads dotted picturesquely on the slopes of sleepy hamlets.
Little did I know, when we moved there, that it would provide me with an illustration, in miniature, for the damage that the pandemic (or, shall I say, “the pandemic,” because, as I proved in other analyses, the data on which this story was told, was always compromised and unverifiable) and the reaction to the pandemic—did to our culture, and to our civic life.
And the damage that it did to our hearts.
Towns in our area look like Norman Rockwell paintings: there is Main Street, Millerton. It has a white nineteenth-century church steeple, and the super-cute and foodie-famous Irving Farm New York cafe, with its excellent curated coffee beans. It has a charming antiques mall, a popular pizzeria.
When you drive to Millerton, it looks like you are driving into the heart of archetypal America. Everything that Woody Guthrie songs memorialize, everything of which American soldiers dreamt when they were far away—all that is decent and pure—is to be found in Hudson Valley towns.
It sure looks that way, anyway.
But now I am obliged to maintain a fervent inner monologue, just so I can pleasantly go about my business in the local hardware store, in the local florist, in the post office.
Because an emotional massacre took place in these little towns, across America. And now we are expected to act as if this has never happened at all.
Psychically, though—emotionally—there is blood flowing in the streets. Bodies are stacked up, invisible, in front of the candy stores, the high-end wine stores, the pretty memorials to the World War Two dead; outside the farmers’ market on Saturdays, outside the tapas bars.
So, my quiet, internal mantra, is: “I forgive you.”
I forgive you, Millerton movie theater. Your owner, who was interviewed just before the pandemic, saying lovely things in a local paper about how the revamped theater would enhance the local community, posted a sign in 2021 declaring that only vaccinated people could enter. You needed to really hunt out the fine print to ascertain that you could walk through those doors if you were unvaccinated, but only if you were bearing a negative PCR test.
I forgive the young ladies who worked behind the popcorn counter for telling me that I could not enter further; that I could not sit down with other human beings in my community, to watch a film alongside my neighbors.
I forgive the young ticket-taker for telling me that I had to go back outside, onto the sidewalk; that I could not even stand in the lobby.
I forgive these young people who just wanted jobs and who had to discriminate in the most heinous and scarring of ways—scarring to me, but also to them, no doubt—in order to keep their jobs.
I forgive them. I forgive them for the mortifying scene they were forced to cause.
I forgive the movie theater owner for shouting at me defensively when I questioned this policy.
I forgive the elderly couple in the lobby; the woman who started shrieking at me alarmingly that she was glad of the policy and that she did not want me anywhere near her. I forgive her. I forgive her silent, embarrassed husband for his silence.
I forgive the employee of the Millerton flower shop who demanded of me, the moment I walked in, “Are you vaccinated?”—when I just wanted some nice-looking flowers, some artificial olive branches, perhaps, like those I had seen in a decorating magazine, to arrange in a vase in my study.
I forgive this employee for having to follow a script that must have been set out by the county or by the State for all the small businesses to follow, in some bizarre, coercive methodology, as this out-of-the-blue, un-American and inappropriate question was posed all at once somehow, in store after store, in my little town, and in the nearby towns, and even in New York City, during a certain moment in the bad year of 2021.
I forgive these store owners for stripping me of a great benefit of a free society—the immeasurable gift of liberty, of America: the right to be dreamy, to have some privacy, and to be preoccupied with one’s own thoughts.
I forgive this employee for intruding on my privacy in a way that was startling, ill-mannered, and entirely beside the point, given the fact that she was simply selling flowers, and I was simply trying to buy them.
I forgive her for the way this demand made my adrenaline levels jump, as they do when things are unstable around you. In 2021, you could not tell which employees in which stores would confront you, or with what tone, or when, with that urgent, bullying question—when you happened to wander in, just wanting some toothpaste, or a slice of pizza, or to look at some antiques.
Not expecting an inquisition.
I forgive this flower shop employee for presenting me with this abrupt, invasive question that each time made me, with my clinically diagnosed PTSD from a very old trauma, feel ambushed, violated, and humiliated, all at once. Surely this sense of ambush was felt by trauma survivors everywhere.
Are you vaccinated?
Are you? Vaccinated?
Are you vaccinated?
Are you naked? Are you helpless?
Are you mine? My possession?
The viral clip of the president of international markets at Pfizer, Janine Small, admitting to the European Parliament in October 2022 that the mRNA vaccines were never tested to stop transmission, should have made every one of these moments into sources of deep embarrassment and causes for self-criticism for all those people who inflicted these violations of privacy on others or who excluded in any way their neighbors, their fellow countrymen and women.1
They did so, it is clear now to all, based on arrant nonsense.
But meanwhile, I forgive them. I must. Because otherwise the rage and sorrow would exhaust me to death.
I forgive my neighbor who froze when I hugged her.
I forgive my other neighbor, who told me that she was making homemade soup and fresh bread, and that I could join her to have some, if I was vaccinated. If I was unvaccinated, however, she explained, someday she might consent to walk outdoors with me.
I forgive the monitor—what else could one call him—surely appointed by the local Board of Health, who told me that I could not go inside a church at an adorable outdoor town festival at the tiny forested hamlet of Mount Washington, to see an exhibit, because I was unmasked. I forgive him for the steely look in his eyes as he remained unmoved when I explained that had a serious neurological condition and thus could not wear a mask. I forgive the nervous lady at the table full of trinkets, who had apparently ratted us out to the Board of Health representative, when we were simply browsing outdoors, surrounded by fresh air, on a peaceful June day, our faces uncovered, at her table.
I forgive them for making a miserable scene about all of this in front of my then-ten-year-old stepson. The unmasked and unvaccinated are eternally accused of having made scenes, but the scenes were made, really, by the actions of those who were conforming and coercing.
I forgive them for forcing us to leave the festival. I forgive their demonstrating a pathetic and indefensible lesson in servility, and in submission to “orders” that made no sense, in front of an impressionable American child.
I forgive the teller at my local bank for throwing a paper napkin at me to cover my face, when I explained respectfully and gently, from twenty feet away from her, why I did not wear a mask.
I forgive the staff at the Walker Hotel, in lower Manhattan, for warning me that they would call the manager, who would then call law enforcement, if I sat at the Blue Bottle Coffee lunch counter with my unvaccinated self.
I forgive my loved ones for keeping us from the Thanksgiving table.
I forgive one of my best friends for leaving the country without saying goodbye to me; the reason was that she was “disappointed” in me for my stance on masks and vaccines. No matter that this was entirely my risk, my body, my decision, my life. Her “disappointment” led her to assume the burden of censuring me for something that had nothing to do with her. I forgive her, though my heart broke.
I forgive the friend whose daughter had a baby, and who would not let me indoors to see the child.
I forgive the friend who said he did not sit indoors with unvaccinated people.
I forgive the family members who pressed my loved one to get one more booster—thus leading directly to her sustaining heart damage.
I forgive them because my soul instructs me that I must.
But I cannot forget.
Are we supposed to just pick up again, as if emotional limbs were not crushed, as if hearts and guts were not pierced as if with sharp objects?
As if there has been no savagery, no massacre here?
All those people—now that athletes are dropping dead, now that those people’s own loved ones are sickening and hospitalized, now that the “transmission” is known to be a lie and the vaccines’ “efficacy” itself is known to be a lie—are they—sorry? Are they reflecting upon themselves, on their actions, on their consciences; on their immortal souls; on what they have done to others; on their part in this shameful melodrama in American and world history—a time that now can never be erased?
I don’t hear it. I don’t hear any apologies.
I don’t see signs on the Millerton movie theater saying, “Dear Customers. We are so sorry we treated many of you as if we were all living under Jim Crow laws. We did so for no reason at all.
There is no excuse, of course, for such discrimination, then or now. Please forgive us.”
Nothing. Have you seen or heard anything like this? I haven’t. Not one conversation. Not one sign. Not one article. “My friend, I was a beast. How can you forgive me? I behaved so badly.” Have you heard that? No, nothing.
Instead, people have reacted to the fact of their awfulness, of their profound wrongness, of their foolishness, of their ignorance and credulity, like sneaky, guilty dogs. They sidled up.
In the city, they quietly began adding one to the guest list. In the country, they began stopping their cars in the sunny air to have a little chat.
They began calling up just to say “Hi”—after two and a half years.
Two and a half years of brutal, ignorant ostracism.
I can and must forgive all those whom I enumerated. But it is harder to forgive—others.
That personal, inward forgiveness of deluded individuals, or of coerced small business owners, which is my own internal labor—work I do daily between myself and my God, just so that I won’t turn to stone—has nothing to do, of course, with the wrongdoers’ need on their side of the relationship, truly to self-examine and truly to repent. And it certainly does not avert the grave and terrible accounting of crimes, and the enactment of true justice, for the leaders and spokespeople and institutions who committed evil, that is now utterly necessary.
Without accountability, and truth and reconciliation commissions, and terrible, commensurate levels of justice served up to suit the crimes committed, as South Africa, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Germany have all learned to their cost, there is nothing at all to ensure that the exact same crimes won’t be committed again.
And yes, I write this with a clear memory of COVID mania apologist Emily Oster’s ignorant, self-deluding, and dangerous plea in the Atlantic for “amnesty,” “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty,” published on October 31, 2022:
The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. The people who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive. . . . Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward. We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty.2
Or, no. It’s not about a “scorecard.” It is about a series of crimes.
Let there be no misunderstanding. “Amnesty” for crimes of this severity and scale is not an option. There was no group hug after the liberation of Auschwitz.
It is hard to forgive the high school in Chatham that forced a teenager to be mRNA-vaccinated against her wishes, to play basketball, and thus hope for a college scholarship. Those officials must be held accountable.
It is hard to forgive the doctors, the hospitals, the pediatricians, who knew and knew and knew. And bowed their heads, and plunged the needles into the arms of innocents, and committed evil. The doctors who today say, of the horrific side effects brought about by their own hands, their own collusion—“We are baffled. We have no idea.”
When did Western doctors, before 2020, ever have no idea?
The doctors and hospitals and medical organizations—who were discovered in 2023 to have taken money wholesale from the US Department of Health and Human Services—which they received only if they stuck to the HHS “script”—must be held accountable.3
It is hard to forgive the mayors of New York City, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, who both drove the brave first responders who did not wish to submit to a dangerous experiment into joblessness, with no income with which to feed their families. They and other political leaders must be held accountable.
It is hard to forgive the Ivy League universities, that took the money from HHS and then delivered the bodies of their students, by forcing almost all the members of their communities to submit to a deadly or dangerous experimental injection—one that will damage the fertility of many young women and will damage the hearts of many young men; one that will kill community members.
They took the money and there is blood on their hands. Have you, parents of college-age children, received a letter of apology? “We are so sorry we forced your son/daughter to submit to an experimental injection that can harm him/her, that may cripple your daughter with bleeding every single month of her childbearing years, and that may lead your son to drop dead on the track field. And one that, it turns out, has nothing to do with transmission. We can’t apologize enough. (But the money—it was just such a lot.) Really sorry. Won’t do it again, rest assured.”
Did you get that letter, America’s parents?
The deans and trustees who took the money and “mandated” our kids—and some still do, to this day—must be held accountable.
It is almost impossible to forgive the churches, the synagogues, who took the money and stayed closed. Or who took the money, and then locked their doors at High Holy Day Services against the unvaccinated. (Hi there, Hevreh Synagogue of Southern Berkshire. Shalom. Shabbat Shalom. Good Yom Tov.)
“Please note that we require proof of vaccination upon entry for all High Holy Day Services. Please bring a copy with you. Masks are optional and encouraged for all who are comfortable wearing them.”
The rabbis and priests and ministers who took the money and practiced unlawful discrimination, and abandoned their spiritual calling, must be held accountable.
These are great sins.
But meanwhile, you have errands to run. You have books to return to the library and flowers to pick up from the florist; you must go to the kids’ soccer game, you must go to the movie theater, the hardware store. Back to church. Back to synagogue.
You must pick up your life again.
You must step around the bodies decomposing invisibly in the charming streets of our nation. You must pick up again as if you were not annihilated in spirit. Or you must pick up again if you were the abuser.
Will you apologize if you did wrong?
Will you forgive if you were wronged?
Can this nation, which fell so far short of its identity and its Founders’ intention, ever heal?
Can we heal ourselves?
Forgiveness on an internal level—of coerced or deluded individuals—may help us or heal us as private individuals.
But only the gravest of reckonings, the truth pursued to its limit in every single case, investigations and trials launched according to the beautiful rule of our law, and somber justice then served to leaders, spokespeople, and institutions—hey Dr. Oster—will ever allow us to heal, or even move safely forward together—as a nation.