We cannot pretend that this time of crisis is a blessing. It is not. People are dying, and not just from the virus. Suicide and domestic violence rates have risen. Battered children can no longer retreat to the safe space of a school. Many from waiters to accountants are losing their jobs and may not know how to make rent or buy groceries.
And yet, what meaning can we derive from this suffering?
Look around you. Throughout it all, at least so far, we have not fallen. There has been no looting or widespread crime. No democratic collapse or civil war. Stories of togetherness miraculously persist. Virtual sewing circles have psychiatrists and lawyers working online with teachers and grocers to make masks for hospital personnel. Orchestral performers are finding ways to compose and perform music from separated locations. We drive around looking for teddy bear displays, the neighborhood ice cream shop creates a walk-through-window, a friend’s son chalks a hopeful message outside our home, and a school parent creates a mobile library. One time during a walk, we spot ten flat rocks with numbers on them, like a hopscotch board, and take turns jumping with laughter.
Perhaps most significantly, with the loss of human contact is the intense reminder of our undeniable love for our fellow human. Now more than ever
we must acknowledge one of the greatest truths there is: That our collections of nations and our divisions by creed are trivial nothings. As far as nature is concerned, we are one. One species. One race. One shared society.
May this time of suffering unite humanity against a collective enemy. May we grasp that isolation, whether of a person, a family, or a nation, is a fundamental denial of that which we are and shall always strive to be. That in the end, it is our interconnectedness that