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Thursday, March 26, 2020

Unexpected Massive Suffering

Since my last post on February 13, the world climate has changed. A massive pandemic is ravaging our population and we are powerless to stop it. We are doing our best to provide health care for each other, but among the general population, people could not imagine an epidemic. It had been a century since the general population had suffered like this. We should have known from AIDS or ebola or even SARS, but it had to be severe enough to get our attention. Even this month, there are people who are out celebrating their freedom to gather, which hurts our herd immunity. While it is exciting to be a writer during a plague, it is stressful, too. My children are grown and do not need me any more, but they get very angry at any hint that I am not trying to survive.

My thoughts have wandered to the poorest of the poor, the refugees. After leaving a home where their lives were full of poverty or violence, they find themselves unwanted by any country. Living in crowded tent villages, they are now to undergo an illness that kills 3.4% of those who are affected by the “superspreader.” Without clean water, how are they to wash their hands? Without medical care, will their mortality rate be higher?

The character of our country is at stake here. Will we learn from this humbling experience and collaborate with scientists and doctors around the world? Or will we choose the “every man for himself” individualism that pits state against state and country against country? 


Our emotions are ruling the day. Confined to our houses, we vacillate between feeling safe, worrying about our health, worrying about our relatives and friends, and worrying about money. Keeping busy was always a strength of mine, but now even that is not enough. Thankfully, we have technology that allows us to communicate visually as well as in writing. Various people are posting songs, reading sonnets, and offering encouragement online. People are donating food to hospital workers, money for protective gear, and homemade face masks to nursing homes. Let us use this time to search ourselves for the strength of character to weather the illness and the economic chaos it has created. We have never needed each other more.