May I be healed.
May you be healed.
May we be healed.
Years ago, I learned this meditation. It’s more resonant now than ever. As I write, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, there are 35,272,679 souls around the globe who are infected with COVID-19. Of those individuals, each grappling with the fear and suffering of this insidious virus, are 7,426,686 people here in the U.S., including the president. Worldwide, 1,038,307 people have died from Covid and its complications; 209,857 were Americans. All, with their own hopes, families, dreams.
By the time you read this, the pandemic will have claimed more victims.
May I be free of suffering.
May you be free of suffering.
May we be free of suffering.
We will never know how many lives would have been saved it everyone had complied with social distancing and wearing masks in the early days of the pandemic. I have seen estimates as high as 100,000 lives. Projections by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) indicate that more than 363,000 Americans will have died from Covid by January 1, 2021, if we continue on our current trajectory. With universal masking, the model projects 277,000 total deaths. That’s still far too many. But 83,000 lives could be saved.
Think about it. By simply wearing masks, we could prevent the equivalent of 9/11 happening every day from now until the November 3rd election.
May I be full of self-compassion.
May you be full of self-compassion.
May we be full of self-compassion.
I wish this disease on no one. If any good comes of the president’s Covid infection—and the infection of so many in his orbit—I hope it will be a profound lesson in the importance of wearing masks in public. I fervently wish everyone would think beyond themselves and commit to the greater good of the community at large. Our partisan divide is now deadly, with masks or masklessness reduced to symbols of party affiliation. Enough, already. This past weekend’s news is the clearest evidence, yet (as if we needed any more) that large gatherings without masks, particularly indoors, will increase the risk of contracting Covid.
We need to take care of ourselves and each other. It’s scary enough, at the first sign of the slightest congestion, or cough, or sneeze, to wonder and worry that this may not be a simple cold, but Covid. All the more so for those of us with chronic auto-immune diseases and other serious medical conditions. Public masking is imperative.
So is voting. Our health as a people and a nation and a planet are all on the ballot this November. Make your voice heard.
May I be healed.
May you be healed.
May we be healed.
Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.
Image: Jay Castor
Leave a Reply