Americans are overwhelmingly soft in this day and age, and in the grand scheme of things, we have very little to complain about, so I shouldn't. Our family has job security, a roof over our head, food on our table, and each other. We have our health, comfort, and our faith which we are free to express (in highly modified form). This alone puts us in the top 1% of the most privileged people on the planet. I really shouldn't complain. But I will. Because there has been a cost to this pandemic (in an election year), and it's a very real cost. As the election approaches in seven short days, I've got this growing sense of dread and uneasiness. I fear for our country. I fear that the divisions that have been drawn, that have deepened so profoundly in this 2020 year, will be irreconcilable after November 3rd. It hurts my heart. Can we heal after 2020?
Other families have lost income, jobs, loved ones. Our family has not lost much materially. We are still overwhelmingly blessed. But we have lost relationships. I have lost relationships, my children have lost relationships. There is no sense of community anywhere anymore. Not with friends, not with our church family. There are no Saturday morning coffees with the girls. There are no conversations after mass, gatherings for meals, faith formation in person, or even talks with the priest after mass. We are allowed to go to church, but we are isolated while we do so. Our Catholic women's group is melting to nothing. Little Flowers has dissipated. I miss my church family. I miss being around other moms. I miss feeling like part of a community, especially in uncertain and trying times.
I have lost friendships. Being required to "isolate" early on meant that people chose their "germ pods", those that they were comfortable seeing in person, and I... am not in those groups. Two friends have moved away, others have chosen to "isolate together", and I feel cut off. My social circle had narrowed to just my work friends (thank God I have been able to work outside the house throughout all of this!) but now, work friends are moving on as well. That circle has shattered just as thoroughly as the others. I am not handling it well. How people have chosen to respond to the pandemic, their emotional and physical response to it, has caused fissures that were never there before. Add to that political differences in this contentious year, and there are just too many differences to overcome. Before 2020, our commonalities far outweighed our differences. This year, our differences are all anyone can see. Everyone is a judge now. Everyone seems to have the right to deem whether others are "doing it right" in the decisions they are making in response to the pandemic, and the response to what is happening in our country. Hunker down at home? Pull kids from school? Send kids to school? Let them trick or treat on Halloween? Carry on as normal as possible, or quarantine for safety? From what political perspective do you view what is going on in our country at the moment? What movie are you watching, the blue one or the red one? Are YOU on the "right side of history?"
The price our children have paid is even greater. They have paid with their future. Their education was deemed "non-essential". The switch to online learning caused many children, mine included, to sink into a hole they are just now trying to dig out of. The future that my children always envisioned for themselves is having to be revamped because of this. If my son is flunking a class because virtual learning is not a mode in which he can learn, that makes college out of reach, which makes his career goals out of reach. A child who was an A-B student before virtual learning, who is now flunking solely because of virtual learning... that makes me angry. We have had long discussions about a "Plan B"... because he is not capable of staring at a computer screen for 8 hours and ingesting information. This is not right. We've asked for help, and been told the answer is to not shoot for college, to accept failing, rather than to provide learning in a way that he can learn. A smart, capable kid, drowning in online assignments and "self-directed" learning. My blood boils as much as my heart hurts for him.
I see the special needs students that I work with, and see how the shut down has hurt them. Many are in danger of losses that they will be unable to recover from, without the structure that school provides. I saw the regression of these kids who were out of school for six months - I now have to recommend surgery for some whose deficits are too much for us to recover through other means. Our structures to support families with special needs children just dissipated during the shut down, and I could do nothing but watch through telehealth. It was terrible.
There has been a physical cost to this pandemic. There has been a financial cost to this pandemic. Even more, though, there has been a spiritual and emotional cost, a cost in the very relationships that have held us afloat on a daily basis. I see what is happening as a microcosm in my world, and know that it is happening on a vast scale nationwide.
Lord, bless this country. Forgive us our selfishness, pride, and hubris. Forgive us our sins as a nation, for the innocent that cry out to you in anguish. Help us to approach the future with humility, so that we might heal. As individuals, as community, as a nation. In your Son's holy name we pray.
Amen.
