We are living history. That’s always true, of course, but this seems pivotal. The only problem is that I don’t know which way we’re turning.
I hope it’s forward, but I look around me, and I see us falling back. Back into divisions, back into some kind of wishing for a time that never even was — an ideal that was always more fantasy than reality. Relationships have been the collateral damage of COVID-19. We’ve lost so much more than we’ll ever be able to quantify.
For instance, I’ve lost respect for so many people I know. I imagine some of them would say the same of me. They will say that I was willing to take their freedom. I will say that they were willing to sacrifice anyone as long as it didn’t touch them personally.
Much like the last couple of elections, the pandemic is dividing us even further. We aren’t so much conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat. We are separated by so much more than political ideology. I wish I could un-see some of the ugliness around me. But I can’t. I can only look at the people around me with new eyes and wonder how we ever ended up so far apart. Flaws in our culture were revealed as the world around us broke down.
We don’t respect aging.
There’s something incredibly sad about the fact that the elderly were seen as expendable in the first wave of COVID. I watched and listened as one person I knew after another dismissed the high death rates because so many of the dead were above a certain age. I wonder at what age I’ll be considered so unnecessary that my death doesn’t cause so much as a ripple.
Aging has been one of the biggest surprises of my life. I always assumed I would feel older when I was older. But I don’t. I still remember what it was to be all those other, younger ages. I can see my face getting older and feel the differences. I know I’m closer to 40 now than 30, but I don’t feel it. Time is short, and it seems that we have little respect for it until the idea comes fully home to us. We get older, but we don’t usually feel older — yet, we are made to feel irrelevant. This has never been more obvious than when older adults were ranked as the most vulnerable at the outset of the pandemic.
We don’t protect children.
We took it for granted in the first year of the pandemic that children were largely safe. The Delta variant took that safety away from us, and yet there’s been little adjustment to protect the younger, unvaccinated among us. It feels sometimes like no one cares — particularly when I have to sit through another opinion that COVID really won’t hurt the children, despite all evidence to the contrary now. It seems that as a society we are willing to risk their health for our comfort and convenience.
In the past two weeks, I’ve watched the local school system take minimal precautions in their approach to the new school year and then react in shock when cases spread like wildfire. The school system kept reporting low cases for the county despite CDC reports of high contagion and low vaccination rates. While the state of Georgia ranks among the lowest for vaccinations, many others have equally low rates with a death toll that just keeps rising. Children are getting sick, and dismissing it as if it were the cold or flu could have unimaginable lifelong consequences for a population that can’t even opt for vaccination.
We don’t believe in science.
There are massive flaws in our educational system when facts are disregarded in favor of opinion or political spin. We have a cross-section of the public that doesn’t seem to understand research, statistical validity, or scientific inquiry. Convenience and profit are centered in the conversation, and public health is seen as a personal affront rather than as empathy and consideration for others. I fully believe that if our educational system was stronger, more people would be able to separate fact from fiction.
Ablest attitudes prevail.
I can’t count how many times I heard that healthy people should be able to do what they like while vulnerable populations should stay home. The ablest attitudes prevailed over the last year. The privilege and entitlement of that statement have never gotten less appalling. The fact that we would expect the most vulnerable among us to isolate to protect themselves so that we wouldn’t be inconvenienced says a lot about our culture’s shocking lack of empathy.
I used to scroll through social media to like people’s baby and puppy pictures, to celebrate their accomplishments, and to laugh at memes. Now, I scroll with hesitation because I wonder what I’ll see next that will cost me yet another relationship. What I’m seeing is a greater divide than a difference in opinion; it’s a stark value difference with a rising death toll. Every day we spend divided has a human cost.
I’m not virtue signaling, in case you were wondering. This is the raw, sharp ache of grief for the untold losses of this pandemic. They take their toll. I’ve almost gotten used to this constant hum of anxiety, but I will never get used to how the last couple of years have altered relationships.
I am tired, and I long for a day when I’ll be recounting these events rather than living them. Relationships are breaking down because empathy is in short supply. We cannot hear each other. Both sides are desperate for the pandemic to end and yet refusing to work together to end it.
I still hope that we pivot toward the light — toward better education and a cultural shift that sees any preventable death as one too many, where we see one another as precious enough to protect. Nearly every religious tradition has some version of the Golden Rule where we’re meant to treat others the way we want to be treated. I don’t see it in practice when something as simple as a mask mandate sparks controversy and protests, but I hope that one day the desire to protect our neighbor will be as strong as the desire to protect ourselves.
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Previously Published on medium
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