Let Love Ripple On
Stay home. Stay safe. That refrain circles the globe during the COVID outbreak of 2020, but some people aren’t as smart as dogs. You can’t teach them to sit and stay.
I have no problems with the mandate to stay home. It makes perfect sense, and besides that, how many times have I just wished I could bunk in at home, lay on the couch and read a good book? Not sequestered wholly inside, I can go for a walk if I remain six feet away from my fellow man. My garden beckons, and I can go to its safe confines.
Some during this time of the COVID-19 virus hear the six feet, and that’s it. They drive distances on highways to visit six feet away. Nothing wrong with that! Au contraire. Travelling on the roads, hours at a time, is a potential danger. Should an accident of tragic proportions occur, and some require medical care, our system is beleaguered at this time. No place for this type of foolhardy venture that is unnecessary in the first place. No room in the ICU and, definitely, no spare ventilators.
I opened my home to someone who took such a tour. They didn’t think in advance there would be no washroom facilities. In another situation, because I couldn’t utter no to someone else due to my inability to say back off, came for six feet visit but needed the washroom as well. Twice compromised, and I have finished reading two books and almost writing another, staying put. A fat lot of good it may do me after all. But by God, it may help others out there, the fragile members of society that may suffer terribly with this virus.
I have learned something about myself through this time. I have trouble saying no, and I always have. I can’t say no, even if saying yes may hurt me.
How would anyone understand that no is what I mean, as my head shakes in the affirmative? In the future, I will try to say no, unequivocally, without hesitation, when that is what I mean.
During these perilous times, I’ll caution that unnecessary driving may put everyone at risk, and no, I don’t want a six-foot visit.
I know it is hard to stay captive for a couple of months, about sixty days so far. Anne Frank stayed over seven hundred days in the attic that she called the annex in danger of death by the SS. That is the next book on my list, from my Welland Library’s Hoopla (web-based books). My heart may expand as it did the first time I read her account in the days of my youth. Anne had little to do in her confinement, while I can watch TV, read, garden, make bread, and make Skype visits, all a piece of cake.
A local church is doing a food drive this weekend. We are to set our donations on our step. I have some non-perishables that will go in a box to that spot. I can get groceries easily and use online shopping, where they put it right in your trunk, without me ever going in the store. Cleaning products are not readily available, having been bulk bought at the start of this danger. But I have a bit of bleach with water in a spray bottle, which does the trick, and hand soap is as effective as bottled sanitizers. It is so heartwarming to see people doing for those that have not at this time. It warms shadows in my soul, and light shines in. So yes, I will donate when on an ordinary day, I may not have.
Now, this I should have started with, but it was hard to press the words to paper. My dear nephew, who is just a few years younger and who has always been there for me, is suffering. His son, my great nephew, was in Tangier, Morocco, and my nephew wanted him to come home to Ontario, but the young man was afraid of COVID. Time passed, and my great-nephew became ill and later passed on April 1, 2020, from the virus. A tragedy that many on the great green earth are going through. More salt tears to the ocean.
My nephew negotiated his son’s care from continents away. The emergency workers in Morocco, stretched to their limits, still helped my great-nephew navigate a call from his father. An act of kindness and humanity. Father and son were able to have the last conversation and say they loved each other, something we are often remiss to mention.
So in this life of mine that beckons me to live on, I am going to try to say it’s nice to see you, I love you and any other joyous things that come to mind, and in doing so, I will honour those who passed and those who remain. I entreat you to do the same.
My nephew’s Lodge brought him a beautiful Magnolia tree and set it on his lawn in remembrance of his son. Love to a brother and his family suffering. Love in action, from around the corner and six feet away.
Our human nature can oft’ times cause us embarrassment, but when we sew a seed of love, it is as bountiful as the sweet yellow sun shining on the earth so crops may have a greater yield. And that seed of love ripples on and on from one to the next. During this time and times to come, may we ripple on in love, one to the other — yielding love unlimited.
