HOW LONG?

April 7, 2020, Tuesday

The feelings of fear, panic, and resolve are beginning to turn into restlessness and anger as people are now asking how long? How long with the pandemic last? How long will I need to shelter-in-place? (I'm abbreviating it as SIP now.) How long will our lives be disrupted? Unfortunately no one can really say. It's the uncertainty, not the fear, that's making people cranky now.

As an 80-year-old, I still have faint memories of World War II. I was too young to be emotionally affected by the fear and uncertainty of that different kind of war. I've been thinking about the way the lives of my relatives were affected. Was it better for young couples to get married before the man enlisted and perhaps would never come home or would come home permanently scarred? Or was it better to wait an unknown lenghth of time for the war to be over before marrying? My sister was born in 1943 amid shortages of various kinds and an uncertain future. Long after the war, when we traveled to Germany to look for family history records, we learned that a lot of people were alone in their retirment years because they had belived there would be no future for children born during the conflict.

Most of us are not being forced into those kinds of life-changing decisions now. We're in a different kind of war. People have had to cancel plans, up-root estabished patterns of living, stay away from friends and loved ones. Now many of us are itching to get back to normal. The people in charge of government bodies, businesses, and educational and social institutions have had to make decisions without any previous experience, preparation, or time to consult with those affected. Some of those decisions were the right ones, some are going terribly wrong.

Don and I are not seriously affected by the uncertainty. The faculty at the university is unhappy about teaching online and giving pass-fail grades. Some students from abroad who were planning to finish their degree, find that their student visas will expire before they can complete the required courses. One relative is hoping to apply to med school, but the necessary MSAT tests have been cancelled several times. Another has cancelled a long-anticipated trip to Europe. At church we're wondering when we'll be able to hold a big celebration for the congregation's centennial. Next year will no longer be 100 but 100 + 1. Those disruptions are trivial to the many who have lost family members to the virus or whose economic future is severely threatened.

Lots of disappointments, but right now it's more important to continue SIP, be patient, and see what happens. And also to be aware of those whose lives were already uncertain before the pandemic and need our help now.