My mother was my whole world. When I was 17 years old my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Less than 5 months later she died. This all happened in the midst of my senior year of high school. From birth to even now I have always been a momma's girl. Ask any of my siblings. My mother was my whole world. My sister & brother pulled me to the side the day we found out there was nothing anyone could do except keep my mom comfortable until she died & that it wouldn't be very long, it was less than a month later she left us. Going back to that moment when my elder siblings pulled me aside though, I remember them saying to me, as I burst into tears at the words, 'nothing anyone can do...', my siblings tried to tell me they knew how I felt, that they felt the same way. But they didn't. Not really. Because by this point they were both fully grown & had started their lives gotten married had families of their own. They didn't understand how I felt. They had my mom there when they graduated from school. When they got married, when grandchildren joined the family. My mom was there for those milestones in their lives but I wouldn't be blessed with those things. No, I would be doing those things without the one person who understood me the best. Who knew who I was the most. Who loved me more than life itself. Just so you know I am crying as I type these words because even though it has been almost 30 years since her death I still miss her like it was yesterday.
I went on. I graduated from high school, got married, had babies. Unlike my friends who had babies though I had no mom to come & stay with me after my babies were born to help or teach or support me in this new epoch in my life. Just my darling, wonderful, husband. And he was wonderful but becoming a new mother for the first time, or the fourth time, a woman wants her mom nearby to go to for advice, hugs, support. Yes, this means I was horribly jealous of my girlfriends who got to have their mothers there for them. My stepmom worked as a nurse full time. My sister worked full time & had children of her own to care for. I went on because I had no choice. I did what I had to do because I was still alive. But I did it with a hole in my soul. A little piece of my heart missing. And I NEVER stopped missing her. NEVER stopped hurting. NEVER stopped mourning. 27+ years later & I still feel the pain from that missing piece of my heart. My mother was my whole world. The pain never ceased I just got better at pushing it aside. I got better at numbing myself from the pain but it still sneaks up on me when I least expect it. Especially when Liam is struggling to breathe, when he is in the ICU from the common cold, when he was wasting away because the effort to eat was too great. When my anxiety gets so high I have panic attacks. Did you know that being a special needs parent can give you PTSD? What I wouldn't give, on those days when Liam's diagnosis has me crying in a ball in the shower after everyone has gone to sleep for the day, sometimes in the shower at the hospital while he's hooked up to half a dozen machines or more, monitoring his every body part, for a hug from my mom. For her smell to envelope me & make me feel safe. To listen to the cadence of her voice as she soothes my soul & calms my mind. But that isn't going to happen.
You might be wondering why I am telling you all this. To give you a different perspective. The perspective of what it's like to lose a parent when you are very young & how that can alter the course of your life & affect you emotionally & mentally. Because I can tell you from personal experience that losing a parent at a young age is not something you just get over or move on from. When you postulate that COVID-19 is a hoax you are disregarding all those who have gotten sick & died. When you say that it's just a small percentage of the population that get that sick & die you are saying those deaths mean nothing when they mean everything to someone. When I am told to celebrate the fact that more people haven't died, rather than mourn the loss of those who have died from COVID-19 I take exception to that misguided thought. I imagine that the people who have lost family & friends, to the children who have lost their mom or dad, or both of their parents, would disagree vehemently with that suggestion as well. You might as well go to the funerals & tell people to get over it. It's the same principle. You are telling people that their loss doesn't matter. That their feelings, their pain, their emotional & mental anguish mean nothing to you. Which makes you at best incredibly insensitive and at worst a psychopath. Is that the America in which you believe? One with no sympathy, no kindness, no support for the millions of people who live here & are suffering? Because it isn't the one in which I believe. And no I am not being overly dramatic. I am telling you from personal experience that what you are saying is ugly, cruel, & inhuman. My husband & I are both in our mid to late 40s. We are both at a heightened risk for this disease & it's debilitating aftereffects as well, not to mention death. We still have 2 in high school & our special needs son, Liam, to care for, do they not have the right to be raised by 2 healthy parents? After having suffered the loss of a most beloved parent at far too young an age you are essentially asking me to give up & allow my own children to go through the same torture I was forced to endure? Why on earth would I do that to my children? I am unwilling to allow you to do that to your children either. Why would you want to hurt your own children in such a fashion? Why do you insist on being so mule-headed when all of the scientific evidence can point you in the direction needed in order to quell the spread of COVID-19?
Our Liam's lifespan is already ridiculously short thanks to A-T. He'll be incredibly lucky if he lives to see 25. The older he gets the closer to his end he gets. This means each birthday for him I celebrate during the day & then sob it out in my nightly shower. No parent should outlive their child(ren). You say, rather cavalierly, "We are all going to die sometime. It's up to God. Love your loved ones & don't be afraid." By your misguided, insensitive supposition am I supposed to just give up & lay down & allow my life or that of my family & friends' lives to be taken when I could have done something about it?!?! I'm supposed to leave my children without their parents?!? It reminds me of that horrible flood joke. You know the one, where the guy on the roof in the middle of the flood prays & prays for God to rescue him. And even though he was offered saving 3 different times he waved them on & told them God would take care of him. When he inevitably died he goes to heaven & he asks God why He didn't answer his prayers & God said, I sent 2 boats & a helicopter what more did you want?!? It is up to God, ultimately, who dies & when. And I have accepted the inevitability of A-T taking my son early but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back & allow COVID-19 to swoop in & shorten my already short time with him.
Let me put it this way, quite a few of you who are calling COVID is a hoax tend to be big fans of the 2nd amendment constantly crying out that democrats want to take away your guns. That your guns are for protection. Obviously, your life matters enough that you are willing to injure &/or kill another human being before they can hurt you or your family. This contradicts your stance that we shouldn't worry about losing our loved ones to COVID. If you can protect your family & friends with a gun why can't you do the same thing with a mask? What is so abhorrent about wearing a mask, canceling family gatherings for a few months? It's a few months, not the rest of your life. Are you & your family so special, so above the rest of humanity that you can't just cooperate & be decent human beings for a few months? Are you that entitled?
If there is a way to stop people from dying needlessly then we fight to make that happen! You claim other diseases (ie cancer) kill even more people than COVID-19. Car accidents, heart attacks are more deadly. You ask why aren't we looking into those statistics? Or doing something about those deaths. You forget that governments, the CDC, the WHO, & the AMA have all tried to implement safety precautions for those things too. Seatbelt safety, safer vehicles, car seats, airbags, early cancer screenings, funding for research, the FDA are working to get us to eat healthier see our dr regularly & exercise. Things are being done to combat those issues too. The difference between those things & COVID is that those things are things we do to ourselves. If you disregard COVID & the scientists who tell us to wear masks & social distance then you are putting not only your life at risk but the lives of everyone you come into contact with. At that point, in your pursuit of happiness, you are infringing on the health & safety of your fellow Americans' right to pursue happiness, because the sanctity of human life is more valuable than your right to flout masks & social distancing. Scientific American has officially just posted that COVID-19 is now the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States, trailing only heart disease & cancer. Right now 1 in 10 Americans is testing positive for COVID-19.
We haven't even touched on the fact that a great many are either ignoring or pretending it doesn't matter as much as the death count...but what about the aftereffects of COVID-19? It damages the lungs, the heart, the brain, & the muscles. It turns otherwise healthy people into shadows of their former selves. This is a long-term debilitating disease. You claim masks don't work it's all a lie. First let me inform you, if you didn't already know, COVID-19 doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. It will infect & maim & kill believers & non-believers equally. Second, You ask "if masks work why aren't we allowed to visit our dying loved ones in the hospital, because it's a lie, masks don't work!" So I will be the voice of reason & explain this to you logically. When in a hospital setting, one mask in the midst of all those droplets & aerosolized germs is insufficient. That is why you see the first line workers wearing Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) from head to toe! Different types of masks serve different purposes. The average person, who is not working in a medical environment with COVID-19 patients, should wear a cloth mask to conserve PPE for medical workers. Cloth masks are there to keep you from unknowingly spreading the disease to others, & the CDC just announced that wearing a mask can help protect you from getting COVID-19 as well. Oh don't forget you aren't just saving lives you are supporting those many Drs, nurses, and various other hospital staff who are on the front lines caring for those dying family & friends we love so much. If we don't do our part then they will all be so overwhelmed there won't be enough of them to care for all of us anymore. You are part of a society, much like an ecosystem, we all support each other to ensure our survival.
You claim that COVID-19 is being politicized... and you are right but it is only being politicized by you. COVID-19 doesn't care what you believe. It doesn't care who you vote for. It doesn't care what color your skin is, or which country you come from. It lacks the capability to care because it lacks the ability to think. It has three goals; to replicate, find hosts, & devour. That's it. Any politicizing comes from you the denier of science & the barbarian who claims that all the deaths are okay because it's just a small amount of people dying. And your chosen leader Donald Trump (and to an extent most of the members of the GOP) is the main source of that politicizing of all that denial. Because it doesn't fit the narcissistic psychopathic story he's telling himself that he is awe-inspiring & indomitable. And you are all eating it up. You are soaking up his lies like a dying man found wandering the desert with no water. You sycophants & acolytes who are so brainwashed you can't see the forest for the trees. You aren't even considering that you are overwhelming our hospitals & the doctors & nurses on the front lines of this fight against COVID every time you refuse to wear a mask, & spew your rhetoric & lies about the "COVID hoax". Our hospitals across the entire nation are on the brink of not being able to care for all of the positive cases. The rise in cases directly corresponds to your lack of consideration for others. Thinking, logical, sensible, considerate people don't say things like you say to me, and they don't behave the way you all are behaving. They stop & consider the consequences of their actions. They pause when they think of how their behavior affects other people & other's people very lives. But you are so far down the damaging & dangerous conspiracy theory path you just stopped giving a damn about anybody but yourselves. For my fellow Mormons...I urge you to look up the definition of "secret combinations" in the BYU Library Digital Collections before you fall victim to any more online conspiracy theorist groups like QAnon. I also urge you to remember the Church supports science and education. I also urge you to remember that "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them".
People I once knew & thought of as intelligent, kind, honest people are now delusional. COVID-19 is real & is killing us in droves & destroying lives & families by the hundreds of thousands. Satan is alive & well & doing the same work he's been doing since his fall from Heaven. Right now his way of destroying humanity to lead you all astray from common sense & logic. He's leading you from the path of serving your fellow man to fearing your fellow man. And you let him. All of you supposed Christians have allowed the adversary to blind you to the basic principles of the Savior of mankind. To love, to give, to support, to accept, to serve. Who are you? You're not the people I once admired anymore. Now I pity you. I worry about your souls. I shake my head in sadness at your complete lack of discernment from fact to fiction. Do your own research from reputable sites before you spread lies & malignant articles. That's all I ask. The church teaches that education & the acquisition of knowledge are incredibly important....so educate yourself with real knowledge, not conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are dangerous to society at large & because of social media are much more prevalent today than they ever have been before. After all, if it's on FB or Twitter then it must be true. Get off social media! Stop sharing stories you haven't fact-checked. Search for facts on balanced news sites, & non-partisan/non-profit fact-checking sites. I am begging you to stop following/listening to Donald Trump & Qanon & the followers of each!
For balanced sites look to sites like Mediabiasfactcheck, AllSides, Factcheck, Politifact, NPR, Christian Science Monitor, PBS, BBC & The Associated Press (AP).
In summary... #1WEAR THE DAMN MASK!!! Think about other people before you self-righteously cry out that we're infringing on your freedoms, by asking you to skip large gatherings, eating out, & wearing a piece of fabric over the lower half of your face. My special needs son has been wearing a face mask for his own safety, every time he leaves our house for the last 7 years, if he can do it with all of his lung issues you can too. #2THINK FOR YOURSELF!!!! For the first time in a long 4 years, I am filled with hope because Joe Biden won. No, I don't think he can deliver us from all the evil Donald Trump has sowed in this country. I don't think he is the answer to all our prayers. But I do believe it is the first step, hopefully, one of many steps, in the right direction. I think this country is so dramatically split in half that it will take a really long time before the darkness abates. I cannot believe how many people voted for Donald Trump. He is not a man of the people. He's a fascist! He is a moronic, lying, hypocritical, narcissistic, bigot & he has damaged this country almost completely. Some men, I believe, just like to watch the world burn. And he is one of them. When things don't go his way he fans the flames of hatred & anger, like a despot. And then he sits back & enjoys the show like a narcissistic psychopath.
Again, like I stated in my last post, (some of which I repeated in this post & I will keep restating it until you all listen!!!) whether you disagree with me or not, I don't care. These are my opinions. I just have to keep venting on this blog to keep from losing my cool. And please do NOT send me any more messages filled with your Qanon conspiracy theories or your Trump rhetoric. I only listen to real, validated evidence & facts. All other garbage & garbage spreaders need not seek to change my mind.