Personal Sacrifices - Why can't we make them now?

I admit I had a melt down a few weeks ago - anxiety, depression, and physical illness. I have tried to understand why. Being alone is not that unusual for me. I have always enjoyed my private time. In fact, I am relishing the fact that I don't have children who would come in to see me and bring COVID-19 from their outings with friends. I think it was the uncertainty of what I should do to protect myself.  We were getting so many mixed messages in the beginning of this pandemic.

I am grateful I have my own home, and I do not have to go out to work. I can work from home, as I will do soon, teaching a writing class on Zoom. How fortunate I am to be savvy on my computer so I can do that. Many of my generation cannot.

I was thinking today about all the personal sacrifices my parents made in their lifetimes. My father had to go to work when he was just a boy, before there were child labor laws. His father died when he was ten. His childhood was far from normal.

Mother and Daddy lived through WWII and sent their oldest son off when he was only nineteen. They did not know if he would be killed or come home safely. Two of his cousins went to that war and did not ever come home. Those personal sacrifices for the sake of our country were the hardest anyone could ever make.

During the Great Depression when my parents had three little children, long before I was born, they lived above a store they ran. In front of the store were gas pumps and their place was called a filling station. When their customers lost jobs and had no money to purchase the food or gasoline, my family lived off the food on the shelves of the store. They did not buy clothes, groceries, and certainly did not travel. Today, if folks can't take their family vacation to the beach, they are angry and upset. They have not stopped ordering off Amazon and can get almost anything they want delivered. My parents stayed home in Pelham, Georgia. They were not the only ones. Most people had to sacrifice comforts they had once enjoyed.

A friend of mine who has a twenty-something son says his generation has always had what they wanted and won't sacrifice anything now to help stop this corona-virus if it means staying home or avoiding friends and gatherings. I wonder how they would handle the draft. What if they were told they must serve in the military whether they liked it or not in order to preserve our country?

What if food was rationed? They could only have certain foods and only a small amount of it.
What if they could only buy a small amount of gasoline each month? What if they had to make a personal sacrifice to save the lives of their parents? What would be their answer?

That is what is being asked of them now. Make a personal sacrifice that can save the lives of your family and the lives of others.

A nurse told me today that she wore a mask, not for herself, but to protect others. Her grandfather is in his nineties, and she would be horrified if she brought this deadly virus  to him. She also said she was not sure she believed the mask made that much difference, but it was a small sacrifice to make if it saved even one person's life. In the hospital where she works, she said there was around 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 at this time. That hospital is about thirty minutes drive from where I live. She had been with three of those patients in the last few days.

Recently a smart and caring young woman who wants to come and visit her family, after hearing how the mayor of Atlanta, who was being careful and following the guidelines given to all of us, has tested positive for COVID-19, decided not to come home and is self-quarantined in her apartment. Four members of her family are all sick with the virus. The older of the four is the sickest at this time. Even when we wear masks, and we go out among people, even people we know, we have a good chance of getting sick. Most people don't know where they caught the virus.

Many people are making huge sacrifices because they have jobs they must go to every day. Many are among those with the lowest income, minorities, people of color, and they are dying from this virus. That is the biggest sacrifice. Not missed vacations, missed concerts, missed entertainment. Some are concerned about their future - will they have a job when they finish college? Who knows, but still we all must give up gathering in groups where we could become infected.

I have had to give up going to certain doctors who will not enforce wearing a mask and who will not wear one themselves. I think, if they won't wear a mask to protect me, are they doing anything in that office - sanitizing after each patient, or are they just among those who don't believe there is a deadly virus going around that kills us? Why don't they believe something so obvious?

We must make the sacrifices necessary to stop this enemy in its tracks or we will never feel safe going out in the world again. I applaud the young people I know who are doing everything right, wearing masks, washing hands, avoiding crowds and practicing social distancing. If only those who seem to be selfish and uncaring would think of others when they are so determined to have a good time with no precautions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/magazine/personal-sacrifice-coronavirus-world-war-ii.html