Beyond the pandemic

My wife's parents were only one years old when the 1918 flu struck

I read in high school about the Great Depression of 1929-1933

My parents didn't talk about it much but they worked hard

My father was in World War II and lost a few good buddies

A cousin went to Korea, and I watched Vietnam on TV

I was living in NYC when the towers fell in 2001

And who can forget anthrax in the mail?

You can add many other events

personal and global

that have made

us pause,

even

cry.

And yet...

What I know

is that somehow,

in some way and in some time

we will be able to pull ourselves together

and get through this. I like the saying from

Victoria, Australia: "Staying Apart Keeps Us Together"

We have scars to show- there is no doubt. Horror stories abound

but also heroic accounts and amazing triumphs from essential workers

to parents working, then returning home to cook, clean, bathe and read a story.

As someone I know said weeks before he died of cancer, "We can handle this. We can handle this." Time is not ticking like a bomb or as "sands through an hourglass." This is truly a Phoenix moment, a metamorphosis: We can get through this. We will get through it!