Pandemic Ponderings

This is the coronavirus (Covid-19) logo??!!  I guess that is what you would call it.  You see it or versions of it on TV, Facebook, and other media talking about the pandemic, so I thought I would put it here on my post about the pandemic.

This was definitely my hardest week since the "stay home, stay safe" orders started in Utah which was around mid-March.  And really it was just Wednesday through Friday.  In part it is due to my allergies which are only bad during the last two weeks of April and maybe into the first of May.  Sneezing and coughing and itchy eyes is never fun and tends to take my energy in the best of times.  During a pandemic, it made me sluggish and grouchy (apparently).  Even doing the small things that I have tried to do like get outside for a walk and make contact with family and friends seemed more that I could manage.  I also think that not getting our mission call this week also played a part in it all--a bit of a let down after Tuesday and Wednesday passed with no call.  One of my clients (who doesn't know that we are waiting for a call) spent part of her session with me talking about how to help her daughter who is also waiting for a call--fun times! 

Another hard thing was Tuesday morning, one of our ward members passed away.  She was in her middle 40s and although she has struggled with a variety of health problems over the past 20 years, her death in her sleep was totally unexpected.  She leaves behind a family of 5 kids and a sweet husband.  It is so hard not to make personal contact with them and her other friends.  We are made to grieve together, not on social media alone.  She is one of about six deaths which have impacted neighbors in the past three weeks--none from the virus.  It makes me sad for them that they also can't grief together.

So what did I do?

I abandon my list for the week and chose to work on cleaning up my computer and organizing some writing that I have been doing.  I sorted photos (I think I mentioned that I have over 65000 on my computer.) and started the time-consuming process of removing items that I no longer need in both my photos and document files.  (I really don't think I need Tosha's report for high school English.)

I watched another Star War movie with Gary on Friday morning.  There is something definitely off when you are watching movies at 10 in the morning.

Prior to our Star Wars movies, we watched the news briefing for Gov. Cuomo-governor of New York.)  He spoke about his awareness of the hardships that the "shelter in place" orders have caused people in New York.  Then he put up a graphic which started with "56 days" and reminded people that is how long the orders have been in place in New York.  Then he put other stats up like:  WW I  4 years; Great Depression  4 years; Vietnam Ward  8 years; and went on to say:  "New Yorkers and Americans can do hard things and they can do them longer than 56 days.  And life can be better than before if we learn the lessons of this pandemic."  

I loved that perspective and it is true.  Human beings have been dealing with hard things for generations of time.  Pandemics have occurred throughout human history.  I decided to hold on to that perspective--we can do this and we can be better than before.

We have been very blessed through this process--we have food and shelter, we have good health, and we have resources (and we don't watch our 401K too closely because we don't need it for a while--thankfully.)  We understand that many are struggling with many of the daily needs of life.  We try to remember them in our prayers as well as those who have lost family members to the virus. So I decided to be more grateful for my blessings.

The last thing I decided to do was to get a book about the Spanish Flu.  So much is being talked about that period of history.  Sometimes it seemed that people are using the same data to argue opposing beliefs.  I decided that it would be useful to me to read about a prior pandemic.  I am reading Pandemic 1918 by Catherine Arnold.  I have just started it yesterday and filled Gary in last night on the "interesting" details I have learned so far.  (He is "very excited??" for the next several nights of updates about the Spanish flu.)

So I am making the picture below my own personal "logo" for the Covid-19 pandemic.  We shifted some flower boxes forward last fall to make cleaning our patio easier. I forgot that we had a roll of tulip bulbs in the ground that would have gotten covered in that process.  This tulip was still determined to bloom where it was planted, going toward the light (probably about six- seven inches) and then producing two pink blooms for the world to see.  I loved it when I saw it and I decided that we can do that, too, during the pandemic.  "We can bloom where we are planted." "We can do hard things." "Go toward the Light"---lots of useful lines can go with it.

And I made it to another Sunday--and I am feeling better and back to normal.  This is the week that Gary predicted that we would get our mission call back in March when our papers were submitted.  Because we can be a bit competitive, I almost don't want our call to come this week, because then he would be "RIGHT."  Stay tuned!