New Reality

We had to adapt to the new reality

This is the third time I begin this text. Maybe I will give up because I don’t want to talk about Pandemic, viruses, death, and fear. But this is what we have been living for a long year, and the truth is that I can’t let it go. It’s impossible not to talk about it, it’s impossible not to write about it. Perhaps there is nothing new to be said. The photo speaks for itself. Every day I read about more deaths.

A year ago we entered Lent flooded with sadness and bewilderment. Pandemic reached Brazil, Minas and Itajubá. For the first time in more than a century, our church closed its doors in the middle of the Holy Week. Unbelievable! Hence came the race for masks, the race for alcohol, more valuable than gold. And here we are. We had to adapt to the new reality. It seems masks will be part of our daily lives, God knows how long, maybe forever. Maybe until at the end of the world that is not far away.

However, after a few months, we got excited, it seemed everything was going more or less smoothly. Maybe it was all over by the end of the year. What? At the end of the year? No way. Deaths and more deaths. Itajubá was still far from the most devastated cities with multitudes of people infected and many deaths. Suddenly, the end of the year came with sadness, with many deaths and alarming prognoses.

Of course, we are saddened by the death of all the inhabitants of the planet affected by the virus. But, when these people are our friends, it is much sadder. And when they are our family, it is not only sad, it is tragic, it is devastating, and the pain is unimaginable.

It breaks my heart to see sons and daughters who cannot visit their elderly parents for fear that they may contaminate them. Oh, what a sadness we lived to contemplate such a pain.

I get tense when I’m on the streets. There is no way to be a prisoner at home, and I don’t want to, for God’s sake. But I confess that once on the street, all I want is to go home. My anxiety grows, I feel my heart rise in my throat. I get nervous. When I return home, I open my arms and say My home, my life! I take off my clothes, put them in the sun, but you know what? I end up washing everything: clothes, shoes, bag, wedding ring, and hairpin.

This little ending was for us to laugh a little. But really there is nothing funny, there is no reason to laugh. I play to keep from going crazy, I laugh to keep from crying, and I write to unload, to get so much pain out of my chest.

However, I can’t lose my hope, I don’t want to lose hope for a better world. We must move on, lift our eyes to the sky and ask God to help us.

Gratitude!