From the mayor’s newsletter
Each week since the first of April, we have reported the deaths of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and friends and neighbors who lived in our villages and died with COVID-19. Today, we set out 148 empty chairs on the lawn at City Hall to represent these lives lost, these Newtonians whose chairs will be forever empty at the holiday table. Our memorial is modeled after the 20,000 empty chairs set out in October on the grassy Ellipse in Washington, D.C., and closer to home, the 144 chairs at Lawrence City Hall, and the 82 at Plymouth Town Hall.
As we pass by, we will remember that each empty chair reflects a life lost. Working together, #NewtonTogether, let’s honor each of these people by wearing masks, physically distancing, and doing our part, for each other, to keep our neighbors safe.
To quote President Lincoln from the first Thanksgiving proclamation, we give thanks for “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies … they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People … and … they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers …”
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Pretty sad that a thread about the horrors of leafblowers in Newton has 60 plus comments but the horror of Covid 19 and it’s impact in Newton get’s nothing.
I went by all those chairs today. Pretty moving.
I also had mixed feelings of approval for the public recognition of our loss in Newton as well as regret that not that many residents go that way and get to see the warning.
I saw these before knowing what they were. Moving tribute, sad that we need it