Preserving Hope

Hope.  A small word but oh, so powerful.  Not the word itself, but the emotion.  Because hope is an emotion and we need to feel it.  To feed it.  To keep it alive.

Yesterday BC residents received a tiny nugget of good news.  A glimmer of hope as Dr. Henry phrased it.  She encouraged us to stay home because the physical distancing that is our only defense against the coronavirus is to stay away from everyone else.  And yesterday, growth appeared to maybe, possibly, hopefully, start to slow.

I am not one to get bored so staying home is not a particular privation for me.  I can stay in contact with people on line, or by phone.  I marshal my thoughts by writing them out.

The more people who stay home, the fewer people will get sick.  The fewer people getting sick, the better able the health care workers will be in helping those who are sick.

The good news is that people do survive, so yes, celebrate those.  But do not lose sight of the fact that we need to stay home, stay away from people, prevent the virus from spreading by denying it a host.

My goal is to have as many of my friends survive as possible.  Because I have hope that we will be able to meet in real life again.  We will be able to travel again.  We will be able to go to concerts, restaurants, guild meetings, workshops.  But in order to do that?  We need to still be alive and healthy.

So let's just all stay home for a while longer, if we possibly can.  And when this is over?  How about an increase in minimum wage in appreciation for all of the 'essential' workers we are relying on and who never seem to be appreciated for the work that they do?  I'm quite sure a few billionaires could afford a 1% increase in their taxes. 

Just saying.