To many of you it’s obvious that I haven’t written a blog for some time, and while and I could offer many excuses, they would pale into insignificance during the current state-of-affairs. But something has been churning in my mind and it’s time to spill the words onto cyber-paper.
Joe, my husband and I, while self-sequestered in our home, have reflected upon how incredibly fortunate we are, not only to be able to work out of our home, that our love is strong enough to spend 24/7 together without issue…no pots and pans flying…actually, there’s been a lot of ordering in. But throughout this ordeal, we truly recognize how blessed we are. At the same time, our hearts go out to those facing extreme difficulties; loss of jobs, fears of losing homes and businesses, and most important, worries of themselves or their loved ones being afflicted by this invisible monster, the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Joe, who is quite a few years older me and admittedly much wiser, grew-up during The Great Depression. I would often tease him about his depression-era mentality, being extremely frugal and unabashedly practical. So here we are, reserving toilet paper until we both realized how foolish it seemed. There are so many more important things in life…okay, wine is one of them!
Seriously, this is a horrific time in our country and around the globe. It also presents a great opportunity to refocus on what really matters. In a sense, we have captured the esprit de corps of a depression-era mentality as we find ourselves readjusting our mindset. Hopefully, we’ve also developed a greater a sense of responsibility, not just responsibility for one’s family and those we love and protect, but responsibility for our neighbors, and responsibility to our country. Rooted in our American ingenuity, we’ve seen entrepreneurship rise to the heights of creativity one could only imagine. Businesses reinventing themselves with restaurants becoming grocery stores and grocery stores becoming delivery services, factories across the country retooling to produce personal protection products for our first responders and major corporations partnering with unlikely sources; Ford Motor Company and General Electric Healthcare Systems, to name one. And politicians from both sides of the aisle working in concert as implausible bedfellows. Unprecedented cooperation and humanity in a time of crisis. And let’s not forget Zoom Happy Hours…America at her best!
The novel coronavirus crisis will end and hopefully, we will be able to give a huge sigh of relief that the death toll was not as bad as originally forecast. But what’s next? Surely, the statisticians will revise their actuary tables and try to describe where they went wrong. The economists will move full throttle with market predictions in trying to determine how quickly our economy will rebound. Surely, the bleachers will be filled with armchair quarterbacks in the social, economic and political stadiums. Media Outlets will start rolling out the soundbites. Fingers will wag. And politicians will once again stand upon their soapboxes and spend taxpayer dollars at will. I guess that means life will return to normal. I hope I’m wrong.
In the final analysis, the move forward could be quite simple; continue to behave as though we are still weathering a crisis. As individual citizens, afforded enormous rights and freedoms, let’s stop the vitriol, stop expecting or demanding others to do for us what we can do for ourselves, continue to work hard, take care of our family and neighbors. Don’t lose the humanity we’ve just gained. Help keep America Great, Safe, and Kind!
Oh, depression-mentality…I’ll never tease Joe again!
