The Difference Between Then and Now is This

My heart goes out to families where some of the members are vaccinated and others aren’t.

The vaccinated folks wonder why the unvaccinated relatives don’t care enough to protect themselves against a deadly disease. More fundamentally, and here we are talking about deeply hurt feelings, the vaccinated folks can’t figure out why the unvaccinated relatives don’t love them enough to do such a simple, easy thing. It smells like not caring. It smells like you don’t really matter to me. It smells like I’m fine living my life without seeing you.

Not getting vaccinated says that you’re okay with exchanging Christmas presents with your vaccinated family members in a parking lot.

If one is a parent, say, this would be a bitter pill to swallow. If one is an older parent, a person with a fairly limited life expectancy post-Covid, if there is, in fact, ever a post-Covid, then the decision by one’s loved ones not to vaccinate is a rupturing thing, a catastrophic highway buckling, a sinkhole appearing out of nowhere, a bridge collapsing at rush hour. It’s not like forgetting a birthday or gambling away your college tuition.

Maybe unvaccinated people get that but I’m guessing they don’t.

It’s harder for me to imagine but I guess unvaccinated people are heavy into thinking they don’t want to be forced into taking a vaccine. They want the freedom to choose. I understand this – being a big choice advocate myself – but my understanding is limited. I have never knowingly exercised my right to choose in a way that would endanger the lives of other people. And, too, unvaccinated people seem almost flippant about the virus, fatalistic, if I get it I get it. It is the flippancy that can be most piercing for vaccinated people who have done everything possible to avoid getting sick and causing other people trouble and grief.

So, my sense is that there is a lot of heartache around the country right now. A lot of families that don’t have what they had.

The holidays are coming. We are preparing by getting out our old family pictures.