Dear Covid

 Hey covid,

Today is September 12th, 2021 and long past time you knock it off. It’s no secret that I hate you. You are cruel and small all at once. You are evil and mean. You rob people of time. You are stealth like, taking air from some and allowing others to breathe you into a room with no knowledge you are there. You make experts question everything and you’ve made fools believe they know it all. 

Kudos, covid.  Seriously, it was amazingly wise of you to pick your first target so well. You knew humans would value economies over people. Young over old. Strong over weak. You knew that your first victims had to be who our society would willingly sacrifice in order for you to have more time. You knew we’d lay our older and sicker people at your feet while going about our lives, because, well, we love a good party. You knew as we watched old and sick people die, we’d be convinced that you weren’t coming for anyone else. You bet against us and played that hand well. 

You also picked a great time in history. An already crazy election year in modern day America was bloody brilliant. For real, it was bloody and brilliant. You predicted Americans would blame each other for deaths instead of blaming you. You knew Americans wouldn’t have a unified team approach against you. You knew we’d make this “us vs them” and somehow you managed to not be on either side. Americans have the need for power.  Knowing you are real comes with a side of humility acknowledging a lack of total control over you. Those who crave power, they deny you the most. Well played. It’s an interesting approach as I watch who is dying in this story. At first you were killing republicans and democrats. We both know that’s changed. Look at how individual counties voted either red or blue and compare that with vaccines and death rates. You definitely convinced one group to die in your honor conflating you with freedom. Their lives just a number to you, because all you need is more time. Time for you to allow conspiracy theories to build and become more complex, while you do the same. Impressive. 

Then you mutated on us. I see you everywhere. My co workers are so tired. I don’t mean sleepy, I mean, their hearts, my heart is tired. Tired of you, covid. Tired of your coughs echoing through the halls. Tired of bipaps and high flow oxygen machines. Tired of being yelled out for a “fake” diagnosis. Tired of people begging to be saved and apologizing for their decisions. Tired of watching people die. Tired of providing grief information for more children who lost a mom or dad. 

You knew if you waited long enough to attack younger adults, people would be too fatigued to change their own behavior. You thought about how quickly Americans lost the unity of September 12th, 2001. You calculated correctly we wouldn’t care about anything for long, even when that anything is each other. 

If you were standing in front me, I’d punch you. If you were something I could control, I’d kill you. I’d bleach wipe the hell out of you, lock you in a dumpster, set you on fire and throw you into an oil well along with all my PPE. At that point, I wouldn’t even try to convince anyone anymore of how real you were. I’d just let you die and when you were extinct, I’d let them have their false beliefs.  

Truth is, I have to reconcile something that my heart and mind are struggling with. You possess none of the human like qualities I want to assign to you. While you are very real and dangerous, you aren’t a planner. You aren’t actually cruel or stealth like. You didn’t pick an election year and you aren’t brilliant. You, dear covid, are just a virus. No emotions. No thoughts. Just a bug, that has revealed some of the biggest wounds the human race has. You exposed the worst in us. The fragility. The lack of control. The need to have someone to blame. The heart of people who will not love their neighbors, if they perceive love will cost them something. The mortality of us all. Everything that’s terrible about you covid, is really just a reflection of what’s terrible about people. You aren’t human, we are.

There’s more though, covid. I’ve learned things from you. I’ve learned coping skills are amazing, but inadequate. I’ve learned the difference in self care and self comfort. I trust no one who refuses to wear a mask. It used to be difficult to discern who would love their neighbors, but you, covid, have made that easy. I now understand what it means to pray all the time. I’ve felt actual joy when someone gets better. I have grief stricken faces seared into my mind as I’ve held the Ipad screen close to you, inside of a dying body.  I want to assign you human qualities because you were present at these deaths, in the cries of their loved ones. You were there as lungs couldn’t expand, you created the problem. Yet, you feel nothing. You aren’t joyful when people live or sad when they die. You are just a terrible virus. 

Covid, here’s what you can’t reflect. Goodness. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Love. As I watch a nurse start an IV, a doctor listen to a heartbeat, a social worker offer encouragement, or the code team pump on someone’s chest, I see people trying to save people. Every time someone gets vaccinated, I imagine a little fire hose putting out your flame. When I see a person with a mask on, I whisper a prayer of gratitude. I love epidemiologists mapping and trying to make people as safe as possible.  Have you watched those amazing pharmacist who won’t stop because surely, there is a way to stop your havoc? Helpers pushing back against you, at great cost to them. 

You see covid, just like September 11th fades away every year and Americans go about their lives, we carry scars and grief. Thankfully, there are people who still work for the good of their neighbors in the face of terrible things. Sadly, you are just one of those things. There will be more. The death toll for Americans on September 11th was staggering.  Covid, if we calculate the human loss for you in this country, it would be like America woke up and experienced September 11th for 251 days and counting. What America needs now is September 12th. We need 251 September 12ths. We desperately miss that unity. We need to recognize it’s always been us versus you. It’s never been us versus anything else.  The human race is on the same team. Individual team members are either helping or they are hurting this fight, but we are fighting from the same team. I have to believe we are coming for you covid. We may have to drag some of our teammates along, but if they survive, it will be worth it. They may always deny you or that they could have died. That’s just history on repeat, we both know people who deny details of September 11th, but that doesn’t change the fact that so many people died. People don’t have to believe you exist. You are real and we will never be the same. It would be amazing to see how effective a unified team approach could be against you. 

Perhaps the real miracle, the real cure, would be to love each other again. To make America be kind and lead the way in this fight against you. To distribute the vaccine to the world and all of us take it too. If we would wear our masks because it just may help. If, as a team of humans, we fought you together, with a fierce love for our neighbor that won’t be deterred, we’d win. 

The greatest miracle is always love. If we all really loved each other we’d beat you for sure. Not that you’d care about the defeat at all, but us humans, we’d celebrate, with a great big party. 

Same team humans, come on, it’s September 12th…let’s do this…together. 

A Blessing for the Grieving

I ask for a blessing...

For those who saw it coming,

and those who were so shocked.

For those whose hands hold emptiness

and who feel piles of sand around their feet.

For those who felt God's presence in their loved one's final moments,

and for those who were so certain of God's healing, they felt desperately alone as they said goodbye~to their person and their hope for a miracle.

For the doctors, nurses, medical workers who are accused of putting science over God all of the time,

and who are also the medical hands that receive the bodies of the accusers when those who hurled insults are now sick.

For the doctors that deliver news of life expectancy,

and for the hearers of that news. 

For the hearts that consider all the decisions leading to here,

and replay each one on repeat.

To this open, gaping, wound of here. 

With ocean waves of disease, racism, religion, knocking us all down again and again and again.

It's in the falling we recognize we have no control.

It's in the water we recognize breath isn't ours to give. 

It's in the broken shells we learn God isn't our personal genie.

It's in the sand we recognize our fragility.

It's in the next wave we understand this rhythm. 

It's in Jesus' death, His unanswered cries, we learn cruelty.

It's in our weeping, our pleading, that a soft voice of our Savior pierces through us and asks "Whom are you seeking?" 

That is when we realize miracles almost never look like we anticipated.

For this too, we grieve.

Matthew 5:4

American Jesus

 I got into the backseat of our car and buckled my lap-only seat belt. The heat of the car was thick and I was full of questions. I was somewhere between the ages of 6-8 and it was summer in WV. Vacation Bible School (VBS) was in full swing at our church. I clearly remember asking, “Mom, what does allegiance mean”? My Mom is a really great teacher and was always happy to engage in a vocab lesson. She explained allegiance. I remember understanding it to mean devotion and loyalty. Next question, “Mom, how can we pledge allegiance to three things?” Like so many other American children, VBS opened each night with hands raised in desperation to be chosen as a volunteer. Once three volunteers were chosen, each stood up front and led the crowd in the Pledge to the American Flag, the Pledge to the Christian Flag, and to the Pledge to the Bible. This is my first memory of questioning something that happened at Church. My Mom and I talked about it while I fired one question after another. “What if there is a time American does something against God? Why, in church, wouldn’t we say the Pledge to the Bible first? Do other Christians in other countries know the pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag? Why would we pledge to a flag and not to God Himself?” 

Sorry, Mom, I surely was/am exhausting to parent. I look at younger me and feel tender at the deep need for authenticity because I know now, that need only grows in intensity. I decided then I probably shouldn’t say the Pledge to the American flag, just in case I have to choose God over America someday, I didn’t want to have lied all these years. I also shouldn’t say the Pledge to the Christian flag either, because I wasn’t sure who else knew about this flag. I remember no conclusion from 6-8 year old Allison about the Pledge to the Bible. For years at my Christian school or future VBS, while someone held the American flag up front, I stood, placed my hand over my heart and said nothing. The few times my teachers fussed at me, I posed my question to them, “What if we have to choose between God and America?” The conversation always stopped and they allowed me to stand there quietly. 

The good tension lies in the fact that I also grew up in a Patriotic family. The stories my Papaw shared about his World War II experience captivated me. He didn’t share much, but he held America and our freedoms close. He didn’t force me to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but he did describe the beauty of the American flag in a war zone. The flag stood for his home and all the people he left back there. The flag was freedom’s symbol and he was willing to fight and die for that freedom. Papaw and the rest of my family taught me to respect the flag. I can’t count how many times I had to go out in a sudden rainstorm and bring the flag inside to protect it from the weather. (I still get annoyed when I see flags on front porches in the rain). The flag NEVER touched the ground and it was ALWAYS put up properly. The flag was not altered in any way because that was changing the symbol my Papaw and others looked at when they were weary in war. My Papaw’s faith in God was palpable too, more so than his patriotism. His love for God and neighbor was evident to everyone he met. I grew up knowing, as much as someone who's never been to war can understand, how valuable the symbol of the flag is. 

There has been so much talk about this American Flag. I’ve watched, somewhat shocked, at the people defacing the flag with symbols, rainbow lines, blue lines, more or less stars or stripes. The same people who get upset at people kneeling during the anthem seem to think it’s fine to place a blue line on the flag. Or the people who think it’s fine to kneel want to put anti racism symbols on the flag. Others place political names on it. All of it is absolutely within our right as Americans to do and change. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the cause represented, the distortion of the flag is bothersome. The beauty of capitalism is, I won’t choose to purchase the distortions of the American flag in any way. 

As a believer in Jesus, there is one particular distortion of the American Flag that makes me stare in disbelief. I really wish people would stop placing the cross (or any Christian symbol) on the American Flag. It elevates the American Flag to a place it doesn’t deserve. It degrades the symbol of Jesus’ crucifixion to a place that is sacrilegious. The placement of a Christian symbol on the American flag ultimately distorts them both. It conflates the love of God with love of America. American Christian Nationalism is symbolized by Jesus draped in a red, white, and blue background. 

With the mass exodus from church the last few years, it is my suspicion that people aren’t leaving Jesus, they are leaving the Americanized Jesus.  Growing up in the Christian version of America, it is easy to confuse the freedoms we have in America with the freedoms Jesus gives us as His children. We tend to view Jesus through the lens of our patriotism rather than view our patriotism through the eyes of Jesus. How do we discern the difference? Like all things with Jesus, it comes back to our hearts. As an American I want to protect what is mine, my property, my rights, my family, my church. As a Christian, the Bible teaches us to use our freedoms to love and serve one another. (Galatians 5 and 6 have been so helpful for me to understand the difference in political freedom and God given freedom). Jesus refused to be the political figure the New Testament characters wanted Him to be. I very much think He still would not want to be associated with man made governments, including the American one I love. 

So, happy 4th of July. It is a day worth celebrating as an American. Have the fireworks, the parties, the food, the reflection. Cheer that we are free, some of us have had voice in this democracy since 1776, some of us got a voice in 1870, some women gained their voice in 1920, some didn’t get a voice until 1965, and some are still hoping to use their voice soon. This is a baby democracy experiment that deserves a party. While celebrating though, don’t imagine that Jesus provides extra blessings within these borders. Take Jesus off the American flag and place Him in your mind, heart, and life where He belongs. 

I do love America, although I still don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. I’m grateful for those who fought and are fighting for our American rights. I also love Jesus, more and differently than I love America. Jesus died for all of us, not just Americans. He came in brown skin and died for the world, every country, every tongue, every heart. I’m grateful for the rights I’m given as a child of God. Those rights cannot ever be taken from me. I live in the tension of God asking me to voluntarily lay my freedoms down for others. I recognize that loving America doesn’t mean the same as loving Jesus and loving Jesus certainly doesn’t mean loving America. America and Jesus don’t have to be in contradiction to each other, but they are never equal. Jesus is not an American. He never has been, He isn’t now, and He never will be. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Long before there was an America, there was Jesus. I want America to be a beacon of light to the world, but I know that America will never be the source of that light.

My identity is found first in my Savior. It always will be. For that and so much more, I am grateful. 

Galations 3: 25-29 But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise. In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises.

 

Emotional Whiplash

*Genders and relationships altered to protect hippa, these stories are ones I’ve witnessed, but also general enough to be any Covid ICU in the country. 

“So here’s how it works, this has a conference speaker that you can turn up really loud over the negative pressure noise…”. I still remember how I felt that day receiving instructions about the zoom cart that would allow family members to communicate with covid patients. I had this sense of gratitude for an easier way to connect them, but also, a deep sense of sadness. I knew this would never be an acceptable way to say goodbye as someone died. 

 “Is covid really THAT bad?I mean, it’s just basically like the flu”. The ensuing discussion, I also remember. My attempts to explain to a group of people that covid and the flu are not the same. My futile sharing of facts and statistics because they didn’t really want the conversation or the information, they just wanted to justify to me why they weren’t wearing a mask.  

Now I’m in the hallway by his room. One of the first covid patients I had. His wife and very young children, begging us over the phone to save him. They wanted to see him. I offered the cart, but he did not want them to see him so sick. This is not how a dad in his 20s wanted to be remembered.  

“It’s our right to worship, the government can’t tell us what to do! All of this about a ‘flu’ is really to keep us out of the sanctuary, this is about our freedom!” I think about scripture that tells us about our own freedoms (See Galatians 5 ). My eyes return to the screen as the on air personality continues his angry vitriol. I feel my own heart racing as he questions why anyone would allow covid to make them fearful? I wonder what he would say to my patient’s young wife and kids?  

“She’s awake and oriented,” I said, as I looked at the entire ICU team, “why do you think she isn’t going to make it?” Sometimes, being a social worker means I have to ask straight forward medical questions. They pull up her X-rays and show me her lungs. One of my team members explains to me what her lungs should look like and how we have no cure for what is happening. Her blood is also too thick. I remind them all that she was perfectly healthy before she got covid. They all agree, but that doesn’t change her prognosis now. “She is asking for you to set up a zoom with her family before she loses the ability to nod yes/no to them”. I walk into her room and start that zoom. Her family shows pictures and engages in reviewing a life well lived. She was an incredible person that her family will miss terribly. 

“My governor says those things aren’t necessary,” a friend remarks to me as she walks by me, pointing at my mask. It had been a really hard week at work, one in which we heard over and over to wear a mask and stay six feet apart. However, I know this will fall on deaf ears, so I simply say, “I’m choosing to wear one anyway”. She proudly tells me that she isn’t and she walks away from me. I wonder why she chose to declare that to me? 

“Allison, do you think, maybe, you could take the computer in there and just let me play a song for her? It was her favorite and I just want her to know I’m thinking about her and remembering her.” Our patient is about to die and in a strange turn on a busy day, I have extra time. I take the cart in and tell her to take her time, play all the songs she wants. The bed rotates back and forth to try and allow gravity to assist with healing. Every two minutes the patient’s face rolls back towards us and her friend plays songs and talks about everyone they have ever known. I assure that friend that we don’t let people die alone. The next day, I stood there as our patient’s heartbeat dropped to zero. I told her I was sorry that this happened to her and replayed the previous days conversations when this patient could also talk with me, I will remember her mouthing “I love you” around the ventilator tube to her people on zoom. 

“We want to sing! No one will tell me not to worship Jesus whenever I want to,” a statement I’ve heard repeatedly over the last few months. “I’m not suggesting you stop worshipping Jesus” I reply, “I’m simply saying that singing is the most dangerous activity according to several epidemiologist, so perhaps now is not the time to be singing in a group”.  I open my Facebook feed to see a church sing-a-long advertised on several pages. My heart races again, engaging in reckless behavior in the name of Jesus seems contrary to His gospel message. I’ve long since given up, no one is listening, not even people I love.  

“She’s had a stroke,” those words send chills down my spine. “She’s a teenager” I hear my own voice crack. “Covid has made her blood clot like an adults. It’s like her body missed the memo that teens don’t react like this. We think we can get her through, but she is going to have a really long road to recovery.”  

“Mom,” Natalie’s words jar me from my evening stare at the wall. “I can’t wait till this is over, I can’t wait to eat at restaurants and get in the car with my friend’s families, and go to the mall...I can’t wait, when do you think it will be over?” I answer as honestly as I can, I hope by the end of the summer we can do those things. As I close my eyes that night, I worry about Natalie and Micah’s mental health. Will they be ok? Will they get too depressed or anxious in all this? God, where’s the balance between their physical and mental health? I don’t hear a reply, but I pray that we are walking that line well. 

I put on my N95 mask and goggles. I’m getting used to the bruise on my nose and am learning to adjust it differently each week. I wonder how the nurses do this for 12 hours? I watch them coding the patient through the window. They talk to each other through the mask and goggles and over the loud negative pressure machine. I hope against all odds that this heartbeat will return.  

“We assure you Mrs. Hall, we will follow all covid precautions. Everyone, but the players on the floor will have a mask on, temp checks at the door, only two spectators per child.”  Micah needs some semblance of fun. We allow him to play. The first game the other coach holds his mask in his hand the entire first half. I’ve become more confrontational so I yell and ask the ref to ask the coach to put his mask on. The ref does. The stares from others make me feel like I’m back in middle school. After the game, I walk over to the other coach and say “please, please, please wear your mask. I think we can do this safely if we all follow precautions.” He apologizes, but adds that he doesn’t think players can hear him through his mask. I’m suddenly standing back at the window of the ICU. I assure him that if the medical team can run a code with more equipment on then he can imagine, then he can definitely call a play with a very simple mask covering his yell. 

“Ma’am, can you please work it out so my dad can get the vaccine”? We don’t have any, and even if we did, I would have to ask the doctor about it since dad currently has covid. He continues, “We should have been more careful. I thought he would be ok. Why did we go over there? Please fix him!” I let him talk to his dad through zoom, begging dad not give up and to keep fighting. The guilt he is carrying will be lifelong. He had no idea that covid would kill his dad. He can’t have been the one to kill his dad. I try to reframe this for him, remind him that all of us are indeed mortal, and that his dad loves him very much. I’m not sure any of that relieves the guilt of being convinced that you gave covid to a loved one.  

“Why would we get a vaccine? Fauci is in bed with the Chinese, no way I’m getting it”! That was my cold stop. That’s the day I broke. I’d been angry, sad, disillusioned, restless, and a thousand other emotions, but reading that line, made everything inside me rage. Rage more than I’ve raged in my entire life. 

“Emotional whiplash,” Stephanie Zerwas, a nurse being interviewed for CNN called it. This giant disconnect between the reality of covid units across hospitals in conjunction with family and friends statements on social media. It is the most accurate description I have ever heard. Mayo Clinic describes whip lash as a “neck injury due to forceful, rapid, back and forth movement of the neck, like the cracking of a whip”. Emotionally, this feels like holding the hand and stroking the hair of a patient as they die of covid and a few hours later receiving an invitation for your daughter to go to an indoor party, because “covid is a hoax”.  Emotional whiplash is witnessing a family member crying for forgiveness because they didn’t listen to warnings about covid and that same day, opening my Facebook feed to see another family gathered around a Christmas tree because “no one will tell me how to celebrate”. Emotional whiplash is knowing so many of your close friends say repeatedly they only vote pro-life and demand to worship in person while knowing that indoor worship is dangerous to life. It is seeing Pastors pray for healing of their congregations and asking for protection while preaching without a mask.  It’s witnessing a death and the mockery of death rolled into a few hours on the same day with a dash of nightmares thrown in for exhaustion sake.  

So, how do we treat emotional whiplash? Well, ideally, I wouldn’t keep cracking my neck every day, but life goes on and for most people, they say they follow covid precautions. Reality though is that most make a lot more exceptions to precautions than actually following them. Exceptions for family or for indoor dining or for worship.  I can’t unsee the selfishness I witness daily. As a step towards healing I’m praying to forgive everyone who has hit me emotionally, especially those who have hit often.  I’ve set up some new rules, no Facebook on days I work. Our emotions are not meant to swing from sorrow and death to someone denying the cause of that death every single day. I can’t expect that of myself, that is not going to heal. The “unfollow” button has become a good friend, mostly because if I stop seeing what some friends are posting, I may be able to stay friends with them in real life. I’ve started speaking the truth constantly, no emotions, no shaming, if I see someone share an incorrect fact about covid, I ask for the source. Spoiler alert-they rarely have one. I limit my interactions to people who are covid conscious. Despite repeated claims that we can’t worship anymore, I’ve found other ways to worship Jesus and connect with Him that do not involve anything that goes against safety precautions. I journal, I pray, I read the Bible, I zoom with my Sunday school class, I jump on other church’s zooms, I read research studies, I take long baths, and I drink wine.  

I still have emotional whiplash, but I’m working to not allow that to become PTSD. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I’m trying. If you want to help, the entire medical community and me, stop posting inaccurate things about covid. Stop acting like you know what’s “really” happening because your cousin is a nurse and told you. Stop viewing a comment from a doctor and a construction worker with equal importance. I wouldn’t trust the doctor over the construction worker to fix my house, I’m not trusting the construction guy over the doctor when my family needs medical attention. Let’s be honest with ourselves, if your loved one suddenly couldn’t breathe, you aren’t stopping by Home Depot on the way to the ER.  Listen to experts, read medical sources, and pray.  If you insist on going about your life as if covid isn’t an issue, stop posting pictures about it. Every time you do, I worry that I’ll be holding the IPAD for your family next and I get angry that I’m more concerned about your safety than you are.  Be supportive, go back to loving the nurses, doctors, respiratory therapist, (and even social workers if you are feeling generous) who are caring for the sick. Most of all, stop declaring it as something that’s been overly dramatized. It doesn’t get more dramatic than death and some of us are walking in it’s shadow every day. So very grateful to cling to these words constantly, “Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” Luke 1:78-79 

May all of our feet find the path of peace, while waiting for a glorious sunrise...