Covid-19 Journal

In spite of everything going on in the world and at hospitals everywhere, life goes on.


I am a futurist and optimist. That’s my basic orientation to life. If you see me as negative and critical, you’ve missed the real point of who and what I am.


As reported the other day, I learned that the elder couple I have been helping entered a new and dire situation. The husband/father/brother was placed in hospice at the hospital. He died shortly thereafter. He had had a second operation but three or more systems in his body shut down rapidly. The end came quickly. Because of the surrounding pandemic, no visitors were allowed in to see him. He was weak and able to speak by phone only with assistance from the nurse. His daughter spoke with him, but he died while I waited to speak with him.


Meanwhile, his wife is safe and sound in a nursing home. Her dementia worsens and insulates her from her husband’s drama just a few miles away in hospital. She can not live alone. She needs experienced healthcare staff to navigate daily life.


I informed their landlord of the situation. I discussed these matters with the only offspring who can take responsibility for her parents’ affairs. She is understandably bereft and in grieving. And she is alone as well; not just because of Covid-19, but the men in her life have abandoned her with the kids, she alone owns and runs two businesses, and attempts to handle family affairs with one brother and three sisters who will not get involved. So sad. A family tragedy long in the making. Forever an open wound.


Work on church projects continue. We struggle to produce good results from efforts hampered by remote connections rather than face to face. We learn how to do this; always learning. Not a natural manner in which to live. We are rapidly planning new ways to deal with Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Electronic broadcasting of course, but maybe an outdoor service with attendees sitting in their closed cars observing a symbolic service in the parking lot. We’ll see how that works!


Church service today is electronic over our Facebook page. What went wrong last week was fixed and the service today should go quite well. Thanks to all who make that happen. Such technical prowess we have among us!


A friend and neighbor shared the following snippet from John F. Kennedy’s speech he was going to give the day he was assassinated; it’s words are haunting and especially meaningful for us today:

 “Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power, but the preservation of peace and freedom.

So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation’s future is at stake.

Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause — united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future — and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance.”

The nature of the past, present and future is a reminder that we are the first to chart unknown regions of our nation or global village. In this season of hope and expectation, let us rejoice in the potential we can make happen in our lifetime.

March 29, 2020