To be clear:
- I wear a mask every day.
- I work from home 2 days a week, and with limited teams on site for the days I am in.
- I have been to a mere 3 restaurants and 1 mall since last March.
- I know people who have had COVID and have mourned with those who lost family members from the disease
This reflection does not come from a place of ignorance to the issue, or a call to rally against public health measures. This is a reaction to the thousands of families in our community going through a very hard season of life and not handling it perfectly. In truth, some of our reactions, and over reactions to this, are hurting ourselves and our families. We're frozen by fear to live our lives in healthy ways in the days of COVID.
I had a conversation with my 95-year-old grandmother on Thanksgiving weekend. It was over the phone because she has been locked in her long-term care home since March, with only a few select approved visitors allowed to go visit in person. Grandma was born in 1925. By the time she was 20, she had lived 10 years of the Great Depression on pennies a week for food, and then lived through WWII seeing her family and friends go off to war. By any objective reasoning, she had lost so much of what life in Canada could offer. Her perspective on COVID, was that we should all enjoy whatever we can, while we can. We should be thankful for what we have, and not get caught believing that we deserve more.
Many of us could use a shot of this wisdom right now. In recent days I have seen people vacillate between hyper vigilance and self-pity. On one day, we question ourselves and others for seeing their loved ones scolding them for “risky” behaviours, and then the very next day we mourn the loss of grade 8 graduations and how that is so unfair for the lives of 13 years old’s. There is a balanced truth that could make life much more tolerable.
On the days you feel that any socializing is bad socializing, regardless of the health precautions being taken …
Check Your Thinking.
The goal was never to keep people apart from each other, or to prevent anyone from getting sick. Each of us get all kinds of sicknesses every year, with some ending up with serious conditions. The goal is to delay it enough, and control it enough so that the hospitals can take care of people who are sick. That is, of course, what a hospital is designed to do; take care of those who are sick. Yet, you and I will not come out of the pandemic in a healthy place if we don’t care for each other and stay connected in relationship. Zoom calls a good, but not always enough. Sometimes, the people you love need you right there beside them. They might even need a hug. Understanding that the pandemic will last years not months, it is not healthy to assume that you can stay separated, touchless and fearful for that long. By comparison, I have supported more families and individuals who are dealing with self-harm, depression and suicide then those who have dealt with COVID. What we are doing to ourselves by staying separated is as near as, and sometimes just as damaging or more than CVOID itself. I am not suggesting that we host parties, ignore restrictions and live the life of 2019. I am suggesting we love and care for each other in pandemic safe ways, with people who we trust to be safe. Our lives could be so much richer and filled with joy if we challenged the idea that staying totally apart was important and beneficial. Limiting contact and making wise health choices is not the same as never hugging your loved ones who have not seen a sick person since February. It’s ok to challenge the thinking. In fact, sometimes it’s necessary.
On the days you feel like we’ve lost so much and this is the worst year in the history of the world…
Check Your Perspective.
I write this from a Canadian context, where our wealth has been able to keep us from ever feeling the effects of things that the rest of the world has dealt with for years. Food scarcity, previous pandemics, war, drought. All of these things regularly alter lives of millions, keeping them from education, celebrations, and living life as they would otherwise experience. This pandemic s so hard for Canadians because we honestly believed we were immune to something like this. Turns out we were wrong. But just like humans all throughout history, we will be resilient enough to over comes missing a year of holiday traditions and travel experiences. Not playing on the basketball team for your senior year of high school seems like a really terrible thing for some kids who are trying to make university teams or wanted to win the provincial championships. But ask my Grandma, life is much bigger than what one year or two has to offer. Challenge your thinking that we’ve lost “so much” and try to create some things that you would have never experienced had COVID not come. Take time to be with people who would otherwise be too busy for you. Create new traditions that would have seemed too simple in 2019. Put these past 7 months (and the next 7) into context of a lifetime and remember that this too shall pass. In fact it will pass much more quickly if we follow good health practices. Self-pity is easy and normal in a season like this, but it does not necessarily make it right.
Finally, remember that not every will share your opinion, nor will they share mine. And that’s OK. Life is not about everyone agreeing. Life is about learning from each other, and being OK when we come at it from different sides. Right now, it’s the extremes that are getting us into trouble. Anti-mask rallies, decrying government oppression hurt people. So does anti-social behaviour, keeping loved ones at arms lengths for year. Check your logic and your perspective. We can get through this. Together.
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