During this Pandemic, I learned that people who define kindness as remembering other people’s birthdays and anniversaries and hosting holiday celebrations had a visceral aversion to extending true kindness to those stricken with Long Covid.
True kindness would require them to accept that the “novel” part of this virus demands that they let go of their lifelong embrace of the hygiene hypothesis, change their behaviour, even slightly, and look out for their families and communities.
But the fabric is torn.
The same people who rightly extend kindness to those suffering from diseases that have diagnoses/treatments, such as cancer and diabetes, do not extend the same kindness to us. Why? I came to believe that we scare them, challenge their assumptions, and that we are generally inconvenient. So, their reaction is to mock us and abandon us.
The fabric is torn.
It was already fraying, probably, but we largely didn’t notice. You can’t help but see it now: families ripped apart, friendships shredded, and communities pulled to pieces.
The fabric is torn.
I am not sure it can be repaired, stitched back to resemble the cloth we thought shrouded us in safety, familiarity, and love.
There is so much mending overflowing the basket. There may not be enough thimbles to push the needles through the material. And yet, I see all those trying desperately to put the pieces back together and wonder if those tailors and seamstresses, knitters and crocheters who have not lost hope, who keep stitching, will make some of the cloth whole again.
I desperately hope so.
I also hope that the new quilts that have been fashioned will remain. I hope even more will be created.
That would be a good thing.
