Letter from an essential brother to an essential sister

Yes,

How do you see Mommy? I feel like she’s more relaxed when she talks to me on WhatsApp, but seeing her physical reactions isn’t the same as seeing the things she says on the phone.

Things are calming down here now that the Brooklyn hospital has better news. People are still affected by the isolation.

People are used to being in crowded train stations or seeing hundreds of people, bumping into them while walking around in the streets, ’cause that’s our regular New York City: too small for its people, to big to shut down.

But, now that there are so many people at home, in hospitals and a few going to work, I feel none of us will be the same again when everything goes back to normal.

I mean…

When all this started, there was this women yelling in the train station:

Where are they? The kids, from school… they are supposed to be here, hanging out.

We went from a crazy busy crowded city to a sad lonely panicking city. It’s just creepy.

I tell the people in the building to come down and talk to us, that we need to talk to people too; that they shouldn’t isolate themselves so much from the world that they lose their humanity.

But when they come down and see you, they look at you strangely… I don’t know, like you’re different, like you’re not like them. You get what I mean?

I know someone always has to pay. The strong are capable of weathering the storm and overcoming it.

I know that my responsibility to keep a home afloat keeps me away from the people I want to be with: Mommy, you, my friends.

But perhaps it’s better that when the time comes to say goodbye, the pain is less severe, because the more memories there are of shared moments, the more reasons there are to cry.

But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.

I hope you take care of yourself when you go out reporting, talking to people you don’t trust on the phone. And that you wash your hands frequently.

We’ll talk now.

Love you, sis.

This letter was sent by now considered essential worker Joseph de Jesús De Moya Correa, a porter in a Brooklyn apartment complex who lives in Northern Manhattan, to his sister Jesenia De Moya Correa on April 11, via WhatsApp.