The COVID-19 pandemic is a downright vicious antagonist. Not only can it claim your life, but it can also rob you of your final moments with loved ones. I don’t like to start off a blog post in such a negative light, but unfortunately, this is our reality.
Right now, there’s a big question mark that haunts us. When will this conclude? I saw a Florida Keys restaurant owner on the news a couple of weeks ago. He spoke of the past hurricanes that hit down there and said, “When the hurricanes ended, we knew to start rebuilding. With this, we don’t know when the ending will be.”
And that’s what we all need, isn’t it? We need answers. We need hope.
On a lighter note….
I recently spoke to an acquaintance about the situation we find ourselves in. I told him that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about everything that we’ve taken for granted. Who knew that running to the mall, going to the gym, grabbing lunch at a nearby restaurant, or going over to a friend’s house was such a luxury? How about just driving your car down the street? Even if you put all that aside, who knew that being around our loved ones could be taken away from us so easily? How about the fact that the only way to keep our loved ones safe is to stay away from them? The irony in that is just plain cruel.
The longer I sit here in the confinement of my own home, the more I think about those things we take for granted. I don’t know about any of you, but I never thought I’d experience anything like this in my lifetime. Schools and businesses are closed, graduations and proms are canceled, hospitals are filled to capacity, and our economy is in trouble.
It makes me circle back to the idea of how we’ve been living our lives too quickly and too hard. You know that saying, “stop to smell the roses?” We haven’t been doing that. So when I continued my conversation, I mentioned how I thought that this historical event would be a real eye-opener for people. I was surprised to be questioned on this statement. I explained that before COVID-19, it was easy to not notice how much we had and how much we stood to lose. Throughout this quarantine, we’ve gone without cars, family visits, easily accessible food, movie theaters, baseball games, concerts, etc. Who knew we could get by on so much less? I believe that when we go back to normal (whatever that may be), things will be different. A hug won’t just be a hug. A family picnic won’t just be “another family gathering,” and spending time outside your house will have more meaning than it ever has before.
It is for these reasons that I hope we all will remember the precious people, experiences and moments we have in our lives, and how easily we can lose accessibility to them.
So like I said before, don’t forget to stop and smell those roses. Put your phone down when you’re in a conversation with someone, fully embrace public gatherings when we can be within six feet of each other, and spend an extra couple seconds on that hug with your loved one. We now know what it’s like to lose what we all thought would stay stagnant.
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