I went to the grocery store this morning. Any other day that would not necessarily be post worthy unless I ran into a character that was entertaining, but we are in the middle of Covidcation, which means the whole world is trying to stay home to "flatten the curve" so that the number of deaths from the corona virus will go way down from what is predicted.
I got home with way more than I normally buy because I am trying to make less runs to the stores, got that all put away and sat down at the kitchen table to make a schedule of what all I had to serve my family and when I would do so. I must have sat there for 30 min. It was like I was in shell shock.
It made me think of how to best describe what this was like and I came up with what I think to be a spot on analogy and thought I would share it here for future Erika to look back on.
Do you know how sometimes you will be on the interstate and all of a sudden come to a screeching halt. It's bumper to bumper with zero explanation as to why you are having to wait, but you have to. Wait. There is nothing else for you to do. So you sit there and wait. You might have some jack wagon speed past you on the shoulder, but most of the people are doing what they are supposed to and waiting it out. You might sit there for hours and after awhile you will start to move at a snails pace. You finally come up on what had to have been a horrible accident. You might see the wrecked cars or maybe just the charred grass but you say to yourself Wow, that must have been some accident. You say a prayer for the people involved, hope no one died and go about your day when the traffic finally corrects itself. You are lucky. You stayed in your car. You waited.
This is going to be the experience for the majority of us when it comes to the coronavirus. We won't get it. We will stay home. We might know of people that were affected but for the most part it will be a non event, and that is a huge blessing.
What about the ones that aren't so lucky? What about the people that were in the wreck? The first responders? The people that witnessed the wreck maybe causing damage to their cars too or just the visual of seeing it happen? They will have a much different experience from that wreck than you did. It will stay with them for much longer.
Those are the people that contract the disease. Die from the disease. The doctors and nurses that help them. The family members, the people they came into contact with before they even knew they had it. Corona virus will always mean something a little more intense to them. Sure we will remember the inconvenience of it, but the people that actually have to deal with the virus from a more personal perspective are way more effected than we are. Be thankful of that.
Sometimes when there is an accident there are secondary accidents caused when people rear end one another because they aren't paying attention or if someone gets out of their car and they get hit by the aforementioned jack wagon that is too good to wait for the hold up and is trucking down the shoulder.
All this to say. Stay home. Take the precautions. Pray that you are not infected by this virus. Don't be a jack wagon and most of all...
Go out...Be kind. (But not now...stay home...don't go out...wait to go out later, but always be kind!)
