Note # 59 – The Pointy End

I’ve been thinking a lot about vaccines lately.

Mostly I’ve been thinking about how soon my mom can get hers — my mom who is 79.50 years young and who has weathered this pandemic with the help of Louise Penny novels, jigsaw puzzles, daily Zoom calls with her best friends and sheer determination.

But I’m also wondering when my partner, who is an essential worker at a vet clinic, can get hers. She’s out there, like countless other people in schools and daycares and grocery stores, working hard and putting themselves at risk so that we can all keep going.

If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s how very interconnected we all are and how much we all rely on each other to get through our day to day lives.

And how, despite all the challenges and during a global health emergency, multiple vaccines were developed, tested, approved, produced and are being distributed in under a year.

It’s staggering when you think about it. The sheer number of people who had to work together to get this done. Not just the virologists and immunologists, but also the people who engineered how to refrigerate the vaccines, the people who volunteered for the trials, the people who are transporting the doses to where they need to be, the people who are figuring out how to most efficiently get them into arms.

There’s a scene in Date Square Dharma where Tenzin has made a really delicious lemonade and Julia asks for the recipe. In true Tenzin fashion, he gives her an answer that includes the people who drilled the well for the water, the bees who made the honey for the sweetener and every single person who helped grow that lemon and bring it to his hands.

And he’s right. It’s all connected.

We’re all connected.

And if a virus ripping through the global population hasn’t taught us that, I’m not sure what will.

I’ve found myself getting a little weepy when I’ve seen people sharing their “vaxxies” — a selfie of them getting their shot — because almost to a person, they also took the time to say how emotional they were and how very grateful they felt.

I particularly enjoyed watching superstar human being Dolly Parton getting her vaccine this week. Naturally, because she is Dolly Parton, she took the time to make it a public service announcement, and even rewrote the lyrics to Jolene before she got her jab. And then I remembered that she had contributed a substantial sum of money to help the development of the very vaccine she was being given, but had refused to be given a dose before it was her turn.

“I’m just happy that anything I do can help somebody else,” Parton said in an interview. “When I donated money to the Covid fund, I just wanted it to do some good.”

Mister Rogers always said, in times of disaster, look for the helpers.

I say, if you look carefully, you’ll see that they’re all around us.

I hope that you’re getting your jab real soon and that when you do, you’ll be nothing but grateful.

P.

P.S. If you hit the “Pandemic Wall” this week, like I did, I’m sending you love and light. We’ll get through this, my lovelies…