Thanksgiving during a crisis

I just had my 70th birthday.

The long-envisioned party became reality on March 7, and hugs were bountiful between the happy group at the big celebration. In fact, the whole town was crowded with visitors. It was also the last day of business, and pleasure, as usual. The following week everything related to community was cancelled, and on Friday the 13th, scarcity hysteria emptied grocery shelves of toilet paper, produce, dry/canned goods and eggs. Hand sanitizer became subject to scalpers.

The week after “cancellations week,” we began social-isolation in our homes. 

The pandemic completed its rounds, officially certifying COVID-19 in all fifty states.

 The market has tanked, and the economic fallout is unimaginable, because we just can’t imagine what is to come and how long it will take to recover. It is a blessing that especially children are spared and healthy adults under the age of 60 who contract the disease will most likely be asymptomatic, or mildly to moderately affected, and recuperate, according to my daughter, a doctor in the front lines at Parkland Hospital. (Unlike the flu, which could target any age, in particular our youngest.) However, senior citizen facilities are under lockdown, and seniors with serious health issues are isolated each to his/her own room, because they are the most vulnerable - with enforced loneliness, their lives hang on the closing bell as well. 

My attitude changes every day the disease advances. We are in the midst of our country’s 2-month shut down, at this writing. As the virus jets forward, the people shrink back more and more, relating less and less.  Since I am an introvert living in the country, I can recharge my energy alone, writing & painting & weaving, watching Magnum PI (1980-86), or walking my dog throughout the countryside. The less I talk, the less I need to. That is what I am doing, while my husband works as a tax accountant. I have lived frugally in coffee shacks, and don’t need much. We stockpiled to celebrate a party long before the virus came to town.  

I also possess a bit of calmness, which was hard-earned.  

Back in 2014, I contracted a norovirus on a cruise ship circling the Virgin Islands. My immune system became weakened by my fears. I was afraid of the hurricane enveloping Nassau, which the ship dodged, and then, near St. Marten, a virus took me by storm during a shark-infested 60-ft. dive with a malfunctioning scuba regulator. The ship’s medic diagnosed the virus, gave me anti-vomit medication, and told me to eat rice, but not to order room service. If I did that, she said, the ship’s crew would panic. I guess it did not matter if I mingled with other passengers, while helping myself to rice. 

Back home, more intense nausea ramped up without ceasing.  Sadly cancelling a trip with my daughter to our former home on Maui, I was finally hospitalized for 5 days. In years to come, I have lived with daily spells of moderate nausea, and a stubborn idiopathic pericardial effusion, likely caused by the virus.  Finally, relief came to me in this past year, 2019.  

Today I wake up, thank God for a comfy bed, beautiful sunrise, and the pure pleasure of effortless breathing. I know it was fear that made me vulnerable enough to be devoured by the prowling virus. Apparently, it did not affect other passengers epidemically. I was the one burdened with stress. Why ever did the family choose to proceed with a cruise into a hurricane zone?  I do believe that we are creatures whose well-being generates from the health of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual constitution. Anxiety weakened my well-being. Fear fed on me. Fear invited the predator to dine, and sensing the aroma of panic, prolonged dark days ahead.  So I say, “No Fear” to COVID-19.  

My sister brought me a book for my birthday, “”One Thousand Gifts,” by Ann Voskamp. She had not visited me for some time, and I was struck by her grateful attitude. Literally, it was infectious, and made me feel good that she felt so good about visiting me. After she left, I looked at the book.  It was a memoir by the author, who spoke of how much pain the family endured for years, because of her sister’s death as a child. One day, she began to explore “eucharisteo” or “thanksgiving,” which “holds the mystery of a full life and ever after.”  She decided to write a list of one thousand blessings or gifts, which already existed in the simplicity of her life: Jam piled high on toast, walking conversations, morning birdsongs, wind through flying hair, pet dog and kitten tumbling in play, finding the Big Dipper on a starry night, soft pillows and a warm bed, email from an old friend, sun shining through newborn leaves ... She said it was like “unwrapping love.”

It could take a long time to write down one thousand gifts of daily life - maybe the entire duration of the pandemic. One day at a time. Grieving has already begun for me, because: 1) I am barred from giving hope to incarcerated teens as a faith mentor; 2) I finished a painting for a show that is now cancelled at a closed gallery I worked at, which may not open again; 3) I lost my job reporting the news from Dripping’s City Hall; and 4) isolation from my kids and friends is not healthy either. These are some ways I contribute to our society, because life is no good if it is only about me.

I once watched a PBS program called “Heart Math,” which showed experiments by physicists who measured the impact of peoples’ emotions. The experiments demonstrated the influence that emotions had over the whole world.  Like a great hovering cloud.

So since we are in this together, I really do believe that if that great cloud of emotion is fueled by loving gratitude for all the little things that sustain us through the scariest of times, then we are heading into restoration and healing at a faster rate, rather than mired in tedious tolerance and fear.

Thanksgiving turns our focus away from worry, and toward comfort.

When we are grateful for one another, we will care about each other.

The beautiful bluebonnets blossomed early this spring... for us!