Tacoma celebrates re-opening, but for some touched by virus, a tinge of sadness lingers
In some ways, I was back where it all started.
Fifteen months ago — on March 19, 2020 to be exact — I was dispatched to Wright Park in Tacoma. Days earlier, Governor Jay Inslee had responded to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic by closing schools across the state. Days later, he’d issue the first stay-home order. I was trying to work from a makeshift desk set up in the living room when my editor called and said there was a small wedding at the park that might be worth covering. It was a chance to document the surreal experience we were all suddenly living through, he suggested.
In the shade of a willow tree and under the power granted to a local municipal judge forced to forego indoor courthouse ceremonies, two former high school sweethearts tied the knot. The couple’s 8-year-old son served as the ring bearer. After it was over, the new bride told me that “love prevails.” It felt like a metaphor for the couple’s relationship and — perhaps — words of wisdom for the trials ahead, which we knew were coming, but couldn’t be fully imagined yet.
On Wednesday, there was a very different ceremony at Wright Park. Not far from that same willow tree, Inslee, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodard, County Executive Bruce Dammeier and a host of other local elected officials gathered triumphantly to mark the state’s emergence from most COVID-19 restrictions.
After more than a year of being kept apart in the name of public health and safety, the mood was supposed to be celebratory. Rhubarb, the beloved Rainiers mascot, was on hand. So was Tacoma’s own Marcus Trufant. There was even an incoherent heckler, for good measure, just to remind all of us how unpredictable life can be when not conducted on Zoom.
“We are open big time in the state of Washington,” Inslee proudly proclaimed at one point, garnering loud applause from those on hand.
There was just one catch: This didn’t feel like a party. Try as people might, it felt like something else entirely, and there was a good reason for that.
Since early last year, all of us have been traumatized — to varying degrees — by COVID-19. Many have lost jobs, and too many have lost loved ones. Parents and children watched as the stability of in-person school was taken away, while we all learned quickly and painfully how fast our lives can be upended. We’ve suffered, many of us mightily, as the divides and disparities between us have grown and been revealed for all to see.
As the pomp and circumstance of Wednesday’s event suggested, Washington has now reopened, for better or worse. We’re moving on, and picking up the pieces.
Still, it wasn’t hard to find the scars and fresh wounds that the pandemic has inflicted — and fears of what might lie ahead — which couldn’t help but make all of the pageantry and hoopla feel jarring and tenuous.
At a picnic table away from the festivities, Mary Ann Semler and Candy Carbone met for lunch. They’ve done the same thing nearly every Wednesday for a year, they said, as a way to maintain their friendship and some semblance of human connection. Neither woman had any idea that they’d be sharing their preferred lunch spot with the governor’s big reopening tour.
Semler, 77 and a self-proclaimed introvert, said the early days of the pandemic were easier than the ones that came later. As the crisis dragged on and as the death toll kept climbing, she said life during COVID-19 soon became a “nightmare.” She was separated from her family, and could do little more than yell at her TV. A nation that should have been working together to stamp out the virus instead snarled itself in partisan bickering and, too often, flat-out denial of reality.
“I spent a lot of time very angry,” Semler said of the last 15 months, firm in her belief that the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under former President Trump “cost people’s lives.”
“I’ll never get over that,” Semler said.
Poignantly, Semler told me that one casualty of the pandemic is her trust in people. As music blared in the background, she said it will be difficult to restore.
“I think we should never forget it,” Semler said of the lessons to be learned from COVID-19. “I think we need to not completely focus on celebration. We can’t. It’s a danger. “
On a nearby bench, Raphael Jones also happened to be in Wright Park by chance. He walks his two dogs, Buddy and Bodhi, there every day, he said, but on Wednesday he stopped to see what all the fuss was about.
Asked about his reaction to the unusual event unfolding before him, Jones said he still has plenty of concerns. He’s vaccinated, but the possibility of new COVID variants terrify him. Overall, he described the uncertainty and turmoil of the last year in near biblical proportions.
Like Semler, he found it difficult to let go of it all, even for a few hours.
“It’s not over yet. They say it’s over, but it’s not,” Jones said. “I’m very cautious.”
Not long before taking the stage, Woodards told The News Tribune that none of this was lost on her. While the mayor said it was important to publicly acknowledge how far we’ve come — and the important role essential workers have played in getting us through — she also knows how much is left to do.
“It’s exciting. And let me be clear: It’s exciting for just this moment, because we’re opening up. There is still so much to recover from, and so much work to continue to do,” Woodards said.
If Wednesday made one thing clear, it’s that there’s still a long road ahead.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
