I don’t know your struggle. You don’t know mine. I do know you are not alone.
In these uncertain times, it can be hard to keep our head straight, between having to manage our mental health of being locked away or having our children being home or having to attend virtual meetings after meetings for everything and anything while missing in-person meetings, the longing of seeing friends and family freely, and let’s not forget the daily stress that comes with listening to the rising numbers of people who have tested COVID-19 positive or number of death this pandemic has taken.
But last week, I was watching a report by Sara Sidner on COVID-19 and its impact on communities of color from California, and I was so moved to tears as I watched her report live on air, i realized that yes every day we see the number of deaths and illnesses increasing of people being taken way too soon, and deep down we know that it is not just numbers, these are the fathers, mothers, grandparents and even kids being taken way too soon.
And I know that we are overwhelmed and slowly, we find ourselves becoming desensitized to the news when it comes in day after day, leaving us to just see the numbers and statistics instead of the individual stories, but watching the report moved and really forced me to feel the pain this pandemic is inflicting on real people all over the world.
This is undoubtedly one of the biggest tragedies in our generation.
I sometimes find myself in a state of recognition of how privileged I am and so many others are not affected because I am still here able to hug my kids, have dinner with my family, watch movies, take online classes to continue to growing while hoping for a better future.
Having said that, I believe that guilt is also a form of blessing because guilt leads to two important things, Gratitude and Being Kind. It makes me more grateful than ever for all the blessings that I have and while the outside world does feel scary now, I have seen so many people step up, you have organizations such as The Food Bridge who are helping deliver meals and groceries to families and homeless people in need, small clothing businesses making and donating PPE suits for healthcare workers staff near their area, people getting groceries for underprivileged, free access to many educational websites such as Coding Academy and LinkedIn Learning, providing their lectures and courses, people cooking and delivering to corona patients quarantined at home for free, support groups to help people arrange plasma for covid patients, and artists/singers going live on different social media platforms just to entertain us or even the simple call made to check up on a colleague, friends, family and seeing how there are doing, and, yes I know that we also saw the worst part of people going crazy over tissue papers, but I believe that it was matched with people doing amazing acts for each other (and they are still doing) despite it being a time of sadness, fear, grief and uncertainty for so many of us.
So I want to urge you to take a moment and watch the report, but I also want to thank Sara Sidner for reminding us that there are real people behind the numbers.
As we are aware, even though vaccines are here, we might not go back to our normal lives just yet. So, we will have to stay resilient, continue to help and be there for one another. We may have to keep social distancing, but we can have our hopes high and do everything we can to slow the spread while we await for the light at the end of this tunnel.
So let us keep hope and keep our eyes on the horizon as we work together to get to the other side
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