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Facebook has a thing about memories – for the past couple of weeks I’ve been lambasted with pictures I posted during our trip to Florida in February 2020 – the trip we snuck in just before the pandemic we hadn’t heard of yet hit.  

The pictures are of my nearest and dearest having the time of their lives standing in long lines with hundreds of other people to get on rides where everyone could scream together, of them packed shoulder to shoulder with a mass of humanity waiting for fireworks to begin, of them traipsing down Main Street USA without a care in the world.  Pictures of life before Covid.

Being reminded of that wonderful holiday has also reminded me of what happened next.  I think some of us have forgotten about how scary those first few months of the pandemic were.

I remember watching the news and holding my breath – hospitals were overflowing in Italy and people were being triaged on cots in parking lots, Spain was using a skating rink as a morgue, New York had refrigerator trucks lined up outside their hospitals to house the bodies funeral homes couldn’t accommodate.  

Something terrible was happening out ‘there’ and it was heading our way.

I remember the world shutting down.  I remember the shortage of PPE and hospital workers being frantic – there were not enough masks available to keep them safe let alone the public at large.  We were advised to stay home and everything but essential services shut down. The news grew more frightening as the death toll rose.

Remember?

I remember my kids being afraid to visit me.  I remember schools closing.  I remember when they fenced off the beach and closed the parks.

Remember?

I think some of us have forgotten how this nightmare began.

Lately those ‘some-of-us-ers’ seem to think they have suffered more than the ‘most-of-us-ers’.  Well I’ve got news.  I’m from the ‘most-of-us-ers’ camp and today I’m done of those ‘some-of-us-ers’.

Yesterday was Pink Shirt Day at my granddaughters school – a day to acknowledge bullying.  The kids spent a good part of their day talking about theoretical situations where people were bullied and discussing how to cope in such situations.  And then they walked out of school and were smacked with a flagrant act of bullying.

Our kids still wear masks to school as do their teachers and the crossing guards – it’s become the norm – so when a dump truck driver slowed his vehicle so he could berate the crossing guard about wearing a mask the girls were flabbergasted.  They’re still flabbergasted and a little bit rattled by the event and their grandmother is furious.

This trucker dude was obviously one of the ‘some-of-us-ers’ who have suffered more than and are louder than, the ‘most-of-us-ers’.  He’s obviously forgotten all about the early days of this pandemic – he’s lived through the worst of it thanks to the measures taken to keep him safe and now feels at liberty to express his views in front  of children still following the very rules that have kept us safe.

Two years ago we were clueless about the virus and it would seem some of us still are.

Categories: COVID diary
Tags: #covid19
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