Listen to Black American Natasha Herring, MFA, from The Lower East Side of New York City and now living in Harlem share about living in New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic and working for a part of an organization that trained homecare workers and nursing home workers. “So that was really tough and very dark.” Natasha recalls. “I was a manager. So, I was managing my team…Managing them…helping and assisting with our homecare workers and the nursing home workers and their losses…and then also my team who lost loved ones and trying to keep it together for myself and my own family. So, when I tell you it was hit after hit after hit. It was really, really though.”
Natasha Herring:
“And also, I had a friend who was working security at a hospital in Brooklyn and who, unfortunately, had to witness a lot of the bodies… People’s passing and their bodies just being shipped out overnight…”
“And here in Harlem…I’m not sure if you heard about it, but they had caskets laid out… That’s how bad it was up here. They had wooden caskets outside of the funeral homes…standing up outside… They were so overwhelmed.”
“I did speak to someone who was a mortician who was working during that time and he said it was just horrendous… He said that what was the saddest is that you would find someone who would come in for a funeral and weeks later they would come back in for another person in their family.”
Natasha memorializes 11 people who passed away during the pandemic. She stopped counting after 11 deaths, because it became too morbid. She memorializes Annie Lorine Pressley and several others: friends, family members, acquaintances, and colleagues.
“I remember going to a funeral… and I was like, oh my goodness, I’ve already been here. I remember I was on the eleventh person that had passed away. I remember counting. At one point I was like, I need to stop counting. This is not good for me.” Natasha recalls.
“Livestreaming a funeral felt like you were living in an apocalyptic novel… We write about this stuff. We read about this stuff. But it’s no fun to live it.” Natasha shares.
