Tuesday, May 19 2020
Last day of school--strangest check out ever! Usually all the teachers are in the building, people are playing music, we all go around and chat with each other. Someone is frantically grading those last essays/tests/projects. The old-timers (who were done grading last week) are hanging out. Sometimes there’s an impromptu party. Not this time. We were only allowed in the building by ones and twos. No kiddos--of course there haven’t been since Spring Break when the COVID-tastrophe happened. I saw three teachers and the secretaries plus one student. Couldn’t hug anyone goodbye or go out for lunch with my teacher friends.
However, I did have what I call a paradigm change as I was chatting with the language teacher. We hadn’t seen each other in several months and so were catching each other up on what had been happening in our lives. I talked about Ethan’s diagnosis, she talked about baby goats. Now, I know her life is far from perfect, but what she chose to bring to that brief conversation was a happy, nay, joyful event. Although my news was legitimate (and, truthfully, is taking up most of my mental/physical/emotional focus right now) I thought about what she chose to share and how it made my day that much brighter. I’m doubtful my news did the same for her. So the shift I’m going to try to make with myself is to choose to share the parts of my life that will enrich someone else’s. We have enough bad news as it is.
Speaking of . . . As of today, we’re up to 4,892,550 confirmed cases nationwide (Center for Systems). All nations have begun wide-scale testing, so the figure will most likely go quite a bit higher as we begin to see the complete scale and scope of the thing. Global deaths are 322, 861. For reference, here’s how deaths from COVID in the US stack up against other illnesses (Begley). From the same site as the chart below, 671,000 people died from the flu epidemic in 1918, so we’re not there yet and not projected to get there.
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