How have you been? Did the soon-to-be-over year treat you well, considering?
Considering a global pandemic, darn it!
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
2020 started well for me. I turned an even age number – I always prefer those to odd numbers. And after 19 months, I finally thought my medication was helping me get back on track and then… early March test results showed anomalies and my struggles with the medical system re-started.
Then the entire world closed.
Dystopian, really.
Healthcare workers at the forefront, meagre salary earners thrown on the front lines of pharmacies and grocery and liquor stores. Others losing their jobs or their livelihood, often permanently.
People losing so many loved ones, unable to see them one last time as all visitors were forbidden entry to long-term care residences and hospitals. Others having their surgery and cancer treatments cancelled, then having to go through them without support, experiencing pregnancy losses alone.
Parents struggling to perform at work and take care of their children all day, every day.
So much pain and hardship.
Then fatigue set in, summer arrived, more things opened up and we all thought the worst was being us.
Well, you know me, I rarely think the worst is behind me. 😉
Fall required teachers to go back to often unsafe classrooms, more fatalities, more hospitalisations, many of sick remaining sick long after the medical system declared them cured of the virus and struggling to earn a living.
By then however, the world’s compassion and empathy, already in short supply, withered to nothing.
If everyone is hurting, no one is there to offer solace.
How have you fared? Are you still healthy and relatively wealthy, looking forward to going back to travelling? Happy to have gotten more time with your household near and dear? Spent your summer golfing and swimming at the cottage?
Lucky you. I mean it.
I hope you see it too.
My health challenges continue to this day, but they completely pale in comparison to others in the world who have been so gravely wounded morally, financially and physically.
2021 will offer many of us a light with vaccines coming out. Distribution will be challenging even for rich countries. Some may not get their hands on them before 2022 and beyond. If ever.
We’re there yet.
Coming upon us is Christmas, with many wanting to see family members they love and who love them back in person.
Lucky you.
Maybe some of you anticipate a last Christmas with someone who’s health is fragile. What a choice – to see them in person or not.
My remaining family is three people in their late eighties. Due to my ill health, I haven’t seen them in over two years. I know I’m not alone in this predicament. This year, as they live in elderly care residences, I can’t risk for them or for me. I’ll just have to cross my fingers.
So back to in person celebrations. You’ll do want you want to do, of course. And if you do, don’t tell me because I’ll judge. 😉
May I just mention that amongst your many blessings, spreading a bit of compassion and empathy, even if it means digging deeper than ever before, could go a long way in the coming months?
For the others who haven’t been so lucky in 2020.