For five heroic months the staff (on the front lines) of, my friend, Maggie’s living facility have fought off COVID-19. In fear for their own, and their families, health and lives they cleaned and sanitized excrement, vomit, sneezes, uneaten food, beds, cloths… Somehow kept masks on disoriented, scared, angry and uncomfortable memory lost residents.
They reassured families and friends who were banned from seeing the people they love and care for. They went home, washed their cloths and showered daily before tending to their own families, always wondering if today was the day they may have been in contact with the dreaded disease.
Today was the day! COVID-19 has entered the facility.
Maggie has tested negative and has been moved to a different floor in the same building. But the fear is now reality. They had been successfully fighting the war, now they have to heal and protect the casualties.
They are brave, as brave as any solder in my heart. “I don’t want to work in a place like that”, I think to myself. “Should I offer help, volunteer, do something…?” I, too, am afraid for me, my family, my friend and you.
But, I will not allow fear to consume me.
What I can do is write on these pages, reminding the people who care about others enough to keep reading these thoughts even though they may be hard for them to hear, that COVID-19 is real and that the suffering of others is real.
- We can literally and immediately
- keep others from suffering
- by enduring the inconvenience of
- a little cloth mask
- and some soap and water.
The Druid of Zen 