By Ed Koenig
Curated and edited by Martha Greenwald
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On November 2, 2025, a beautiful autumn afternoon in New York City, I attended the annual Día de Muertos ceremony sponsored by Mano o Mano, a New York City based Mexican cultural association. As part of this event, the COVID remembrance project, Naming the Lost Memorial, held its final presentation honoring the more than 46,000 New York City residents who have died from COVID-19. This concluded five years of work, throughout the five boroughs, putting names and faces to those who have been lost.
I first encountered the work of NTLM in the spring of 2021 when they created a memorial at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, one of the oldest buildings in Northern Manhattan, dating back to 1765. That time, the memorial consisted simply of long, multicolored ribbons, each inscribed with the name of a loved one who had passed. This was the first time I added the name of my partner of thirty-three years, Jody Settle, to a COVID memorial. Jody succumbed to COVID-19 in April 2020. I attended other NTLM events, most recently this past spring at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
I arrived early and strolled along the fences that surround the church, St. Mark’s in the Bowery. Numerous memorial panels hung on the fence, all created by the survivors of these cherished victims. Reflecting the diversity of New York City, the displays were inscribed with thoughts in English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. Some were just words of love. Many were hand-drawn portraits of loved ones. One of the larger displays was created by a young man who had been incarcerated in prison during the time of the pandemic. His work tries to show some of the people who were unable to “flee” when the city was overrun with fear and uncertainty. His message is that no one should be excluded from our memorials just because they were serving time in jail.
I continued my walk and soon turned into the courtyard in front of the church. The people from NTLM had set up tables where passersby could create simple remembrances for their loved ones. They provided me with some sample templates I could use to create my own drawing. I chose the butterfly template and sat down with colored pens and markers and got to work.
I have been a member of a small group of men and women who lost a spouse or partner to COVID. Formed during the early days of the pandemic to comfort and support each other, five years later, our group is still in almost daily contact, friends with a common reason for connection. I decided to include the names of all our spouses on my display. So, I started. I wrote the names all over the template and finished it with a rainbow of background shadows encompassing all of them.
While I was working on my memorial, four or five others were seated nearby doing the same. We all chatted about our works in progress, but, more importantly, we shared the stories of those we were memorializing. As I write this, it seems to me that our sharing was more joyous than mournful. We have had over five years to heal the scars of our devastating losses and can now remember their lives more than their deaths. Our drawings completed, they were added to the display along the fence—more names to remind those going by that our losses were real.
The NTLM ceremony was very simple. The people assembled formed a line, and we marched around the border of the church grounds. As we passed the numerous banners hanging on the fences, a pungent, but sweet, incense was passed over the banners, calling to mind, I guess, the spirits of those remembered there. At several of the displays, we stopped for a few minutes so that the creators could talk about their work.
Eventually, the crowd of 50 to 60 returned to the courtyard of the church. All of us were given an orange marigold to hold in honor of our loved one. Led by Kay Turner, one of the founders of the Naming the Lost Memorial project, we were all encouraged to speak aloud the names of those we had lost. Everyone responded chanting: “naming the lost.” This continued for quite a while until the sound of names quietly dissipated. I looked around as the names were spoken. The faces of many still showed the pain of their loss. A young couple standing near me hugged each other while tears poured down their cheeks. I could only wonder who they mourn now and forever.
The event ended with a charge that, even though the official NTLM project was coming to its conclusion, we must all go forth and continue to name the lost.