Read on Twitter
I'd just finished this account of inherited trauma when a cutie handed me this picture & said, "I'm not looking forward to the future! Things will happen & some of them will be sad! People will die!" https://twitter.com/JaneGRatcliffe/status/1384277366562717704
They'd had a class assignment about things they're looking forward to.
The pandemic has been THE big event in their lives.
14 months & counting shaped by people dying & the lengths we're going to in order to keep them safe.
The pandemic has been THE big event in their lives.
14 months & counting shaped by people dying & the lengths we're going to in order to keep them safe.
One great-grandparent looks paler & frailer in every Zoom call.
Another is in palliative care, their worsening vision now full blindness because their eye doctor appointments were deemed "non-essential" until their facility was fully vaccinated.
Kid knows future = their deaths.
Another is in palliative care, their worsening vision now full blindness because their eye doctor appointments were deemed "non-essential" until their facility was fully vaccinated.
Kid knows future = their deaths.
Hottie & I have gone to sometimes ridiculous lengths to shield our kids from any form of the traumas we endured as children.
But the pandemic was a trauma we never saw coming.
But the pandemic was a trauma we never saw coming.
We joke about how people our age will be stockpiling TP when we're 90.
What will our children do?
Will they feel lingering fear in crowds?
Panic when someone coughs on them?
Struggle with physical closeness or in-person friendships?
I don't know.
Nobody knows.
What will our children do?
Will they feel lingering fear in crowds?
Panic when someone coughs on them?
Struggle with physical closeness or in-person friendships?
I don't know.
Nobody knows.
In 30 years there will be 30 years of research on the pandemic's long-term physical & psychological effects.
But right now there's only today.
Tomorrow.
Clinical trials for the children's vaccine.
Now that's a future thing to look forward to.
/end
But right now there's only today.
Tomorrow.
Clinical trials for the children's vaccine.
Now that's a future thing to look forward to.
/end
