Life in the Age of Coronavirus, Day 9: The Tears Come

Nine straight days of quarantine didn’t do it.

Moving a disappointed college freshman home without a chance to say goodbye to the friends she made didn’t do it—even though she’s changing colleges and really won’t see them again.

The lost eighth grade track season didn’t do it, nor the lost running club for the youngest. The lost hostess job for the oldest didn’t do it. Not even, NOT EVEN, the very real possibility that my own wedding might be canceled later this summer—or at the least radically altered.

Hearing my 80-year-old dad say, “Becca, I reckon you better not come visit” didn’t quite do it.

No, none of those things yet had brought tears. But this one did.

This face. This gentle, smiling face of a stranger, which I sat mesmerized with in Twitter’s feed, posted by a stranger.

I looked him up. I needed more. Who was this man?

Don Giuseppe Berardelli was a 72-year-old Catholic priest in Bergamo, Italy. Though the account of his life I found online was awkwardly translated from Italian to some assortment of English words and phrases, I could pick out enough to grasp that he loved and was dearly loved by his parishioners. So much so that when he contracted COVID-19 among the throngs of others in his community, his parish knew: He won’t let himself be treated above others.

The parishioners went in together and bought a ventilator. Who of us has thought of that? They bought him his own, to be sure he wouldn’t refuse one at the hospital.

And still, when there were not enough, he opted to give his ventilator to someone else. I don’t know who. Someone younger. Maybe someone not yet so secure in his eternal inheritance.

And there they were. The tears, for a stranger. For the man, yes. For his parish, yes. For love, for sorrow, for anguish. For anger at this stupid virus that is sweeping our planet. Taking away Don Giuseppe Berardellis abroad and at home.

For something else too. For the sheer, perfect beauty of it. It’s a beauty that can’t be grasped without tears. Self-sacrifice. Greater love has no man than this, and we know it. We know it so much that we can’t experience this kind of beauty with glee. It has to hurt. It’s too foreign to us. Too vast. Too other. I recognize it but can’t take it in. The tears and sobs push it OUT, OUT! It doesn’t belong in me.

After Moses saw God face to face, his face was too radiant. No one could look at him. He had to veil it until it faded. That’s it. I can’t look. I can’t take this in. It is too wonderful for me.

Mercy, mercy! God have mercy on us all.

And thank you for Don Giuseppe Berardelli. May his memory be eternal.