An ugly title for an ugly post, at least at the beginning.
Last night my husband and I enjoyed something that we rarely do, go out to eat at a restaurant.
We picked out a fun, quick, good, local place to eat. And the burgers were great. But my meal was practically ruined by the emotion that came over me.
It started with a sneeze by the mom of the family at the next table. No tissue, no sleeve, no hand sanitizer. A sneeze into a hand that touched the face of her lovely daughter right next to her…and so this is how it will all begin.
As I sat there, my eyes traveled from table to table. Children were everywhere. Happy faces at a special time of year, what can be better in the eyes of a child than Christmas time. The anticipation of great things to come just makes their little faces glow and their eyes sparkle.
As I continued to look at the family at the next table my heart started hammering. It ached.
And I choked up.
Each one of those children, my heart told me, may some day soon be counted among the dead.
At my table I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs ‘protect your children’ to each one of the parents in the restaurant. Not because I hate them, not because I am angry with them, not because I am outraged at them (yet) but because I really do love them and I really do care what may happen to them, why else be a public health activist other than to steer people away from what ultimately is pain of an unimaginable sort.
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It is Christmas, a time of families and togetherness. A time of remembering whose birth it is that we are celebrating, Jesus Christ. It is also a time for some of us to think about children and family members who are no longer with us but who have gone on before us. It can be a very hard time for those who have lost loved ones. Every song, every light, can remind them of their loss.
This dichotomy, preparing for and urging others to prepare for a disaster and celebrating the birth of hope and our salvation, is hitting me especially hard this year. Oh, I still know the hope that I have. I still have the peace of Jesus Christ that surpasses all understanding.
Yet, I also still have the knowledge that sometimes the world goes through some very tough times. And those times are coming.
The awful and terrible thing about being a public health activist, is that I really know what havoc a novel strain of influenza can wreak on our bodies, and typically this type of influenza strikes at children and it kills them dead. This type of influenza can kill with such swiftness and ferocity that some have described the deaths of family members as “he was with us, healthy, one moment, and then he was gone. Just like that”. This is what a pandemic can be.
Not every pandemic has been something of nightmare proportions but enough of them have been that we cannot afford to gamble by doing nothing.
So here I am at my favorite time of year with a heavy, heavy, heart because I am looking ahead to more holidays, years down the road, where perhaps we will be looking back in remembrance of those we lost in the pandemic. Oh how this hurts. It hurts so much to know that there are things we can do to minimize the deaths and to minimize what else will come with this. But we can’t do any of it unless the parents listen first.
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So if you are reading these heartfelt words today, please, please, search out what has been written by countless experts, medical professionals, moms and dads just like you, and people who just know – a pandemic is coming.
Know that there ARE things that we can do to protect these little ones who mean so much to us. These children who are our live’s, the children who bring us joy and who we are duty bound to protect, are worth every single bit of preparedness effort we can muster.
There is something worse that preparing for a pandemic, not preparing for one and having to bury our dead children.
Your children and grandchildren are counting on you!
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As sometimes happens, I have to come back to a post because I thought I was finished and realized that I only wrote half of the message.
As a public health activist, over the years I have been struck by the similarity between what I do every day – talk about health, researching health topics, and urging preparedness, and what I carry in my heart every day – the message that this life is fleeting and there is so much more beyond this life.
So what is a message about preparedness without a message of hope?
As a parent I also realized that I was duty bound and wanted to help my children to realize that they are loved and wanted by their Creator, God. With that message they also heard from us why Jesus came to earth and how, if we open our hearts to Him, He quickly enters and that is where they will find all peace, hope and love.
Of course that is our families way, our belief, our truth.
It is also the other half of the message, the more important half, of preparedness. Preparing for eternity. A wonderful message indeed.
. . yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.