I’m still trying to maintain time in the craft room everyday, but am finding myself talking on the telephone and working on diamond paintings.  My friends are uncertain and fearful as am I.  We talk about seeing kids out on their bikes, for the first time in years, it seems.  We’re devising a plan for how to spend Easter together without actually being together.  We’re thinking of setting a meal time, and then calling the other so we can talk as if we are in the same house, and then we won’t feel so isolated or disconnected from our loved ones.

Our nephew is an RN in a VA hospital, and now the VA’s are also taking in overflow non-veteran corona patients.  This is our nephew’s first Easter with his bride, and we know he’ll be spending it working…We decided to provide their Easter meal for them and since they live in North Carolina, we are arranging for them to pick their meal up at a Honey Baked Ham store near them.  It’s hard enough trying to get through the first year of marriage, and adding to that the stress of Corona, and the social distancing, means they won’t see any family or each other.  It’s the least we can do, providing them a good dinner.

Our county has now been asked to stay at home.   I know there’s an official term for it, but can’t remember what it is.  Rich went out to get milk and bread, and had to go to several stores just to find those two things.  Apparently, up until this point, the people in our county have been ignoring the warnings, and have been going about life as if it’s business as usual.  Shopping daily, and taking their children to Walmart several times a week.  Facebook in our area is blowing up with people working at Walmart, saying that people are just ignoring all of the warnings, and putting everyone at risk.  Social distancing there is non-existent, and people didn’t seem to act like they had even heard that they should be staying away from each other.  I am reminded of a movie called “Five Feet Apart,” about two kids with Cystic Fibrosis that aren’t allowed to be within six feet of each other.  They come up with a broomstick that is five feet long, and decide to hold that stick between them so they never get too close to each other.  Is that what we have to do to remind each other to stay six feet apart?

I’m saddened that people are taking several young children into grocery stores and allowing them to touch things, letting their babies gnaw on shopping carts…It’s frustrating that people don’t understand that they can have this virus without having any symptoms, and that they are the ones spreading the disease.  What will it take for people to wake up and realize that we can control how much this virus spreads, just by social distancing and staying at home?

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m hoping we can get ahead of this virus, but it’s going to take all of us, taking this virus serious, to do this.

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