The original item was published from April 7, 2020 9:19 AM to April 14, 2020 2:07 PM
Awareness of the pandemic’s imminent arrival despite official announcement of only one case, a foreign traveler in or out of the first-struck-to-worldwide attention who landed in California along with Covid-19 disease, first alarmed me when I thought of my girls who had traveled to Israel the previous month.
Oh, sure, I heard vaguely we had this new thing to worry about. However, living alone for so many years and learning to relax and enjoy it, I did not have the worrywart eruption until one of my daughters reported she was sick overseas.
This led to enhanced awareness once again of danger threatening the only people that are capable of fretting me. My children, all grown, independent in every way including politically, are only like their mother in that they don’t fret about this, that, and every germ that the fake news reports. Their mother, however, does not consider any news “fake,” but just spends most online time reading up on things like how close to roses can I plant my beets and what happened in the land of camels that I can use in my latest fantasy story.
Suddenly every single day electronic blips blast their voices into my consciousness accusing (your chosen scapegoats) of lying, deceiving, hating, doing a good/horrible job. All the anxiety I thought had gone into remission in November 2016 and overcome when it surfaced again in September 2020, resurged with malevolent force.
The spurious superficiality of my mental exercises disappeared when I learned of the extent of the lies imposed upon us as persons undeserving of the truth. At least, this is the reaction I had when I realized we were walking around infecting each other with no way to know who was carrying the disease and who might succumb to the deadly pneumonia that did not strike only elderly persons. The lack of truth coupled with the ignoring of our presence as human beings in need of real leadership cost me a few nights sleep.
After wrestling through the contradictory emotions that wanted to blame the most obvious person for lack of information, in order to relieve the sense I, too, was a stupid ignoramus with not enough judgment to investigate beyond the federal assurances of safety, I realized the futility of such a struggle.
No, I do not cut my leaders in Washington any slack whatsoever. They asked for the job of caring for national need to the best of their ability. I will not tolerate lies or mince words when I write our state elected officials.