I was on an elementary school playground when one of the fourth graders came to me and stated her classmate was crying and won't tell her why.
Whenever I teach and a child regardless of grade or college year secludes themselves from social interaction an alert goes up in my mind that this is bullying.
So, I approached a fourth grade girl sitting on a swing with her head in her lap and when I stood in front of her she looked up and huge crockadile tears where running down her cheeks in 40 degree weather with melting snow all around. I looked into her eyes and asked her, "What happened," giving her the opportunity to tell me what occurred on the playground that caused her all these tears and hurt. She looked at me and stated, "My father died."
Oh, no. I reached down to her and pulled her to standing and wrapped my arms around her as strong as I could muster. I rocked her gently back and forth saying, "Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry." We stood there for what seems like an hour but actually was about five minutes as I cried for her. I wiped her tears away and told her these things happen and she will miss her father for a time to come, but, the hurt will start to be tolerable.
She stated her mom was crying a lot at home. So, I walked her to a bench and state down with her and told her to speak about her mom so she could incorporate all her pain into a single event that both shared and she could even find ways to help her mother at home. She stated her father became very ill at home and couldn't breath and went to the hospital with Mom. She said Mom was scared and she didn't come back home right away and she had to stay with the neighbors.
I listended as this lovely young girl told me about a father she loved and a mother in profound grief. I stated that life can be unfair for what seems like no reason at all. I told her she and her mother would miss her father for some time. I told her there is no way to know when Mom would seem more normal and didn't cry and was able to go about life as usual. There could be changes in her life that she could not stop or control. I told her she needed her education and she had to come to school everyday and be sure her mother knew she was awake in the morning and getting ready to for school. She was to tell her mother she was leaving for the bus. I told her she could ask the school for breakfast and lunches.
This young girl was robbed of her father by COVID-19 or one of it's variants. Gratefully, her mother was okay and she was not an orphan. But, her father died of the virus. This area of the country has a strong conservative presence that is either Libertairan, but, most frequently Republcan. I am confident her father died due to political ideology.
So, there you have it. When politicians rattle on and on as they currently are doing in North Carolina among the Republicans in demonizing decency and the expertise of the medical researchers and scientists and the vaccines they discovered constitutents or soon to be constituants suffer. When they say COVID-19 is a fraud and dreamed up by those on the left. When all that demonizing of THE BEST OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA goes on people die. So, ranting and raving all these anti-social diabribes at voters is not being a patriot or esposing liberty, it is killing people, injuring their survivors deeply to the point where they will never be the same. That widow probably won't vote for years because she was disillussioned by her own government. Are we so proud to have vicious politics taking place that literally kill people and leave enormous grief in the wave of a death?
I never hear Republicans take down Pfizer or Moderna or J&J. They never denounce CEOs for manufacturing the vaccines. I never hear them complain about profiteering of Wall Street causing inflation. What I do hear is how they CHOOSE to victimize voters to allow such paradigms of grief and suffering. They complain about spending money to get Americans through this time in history and they chronically complain about Democratic spending and focus. But, I never hear them state how great the researchers for cures are or how they are fortunate to have them in this country that cares for it's citizens.
Every Republican that ever spoke an ill word about vaccines demonized the ONE method that it proven to save lives. Every one of them is responsible for the death of fathers, mothers, siblings and grandparents as well as sons and daughters. They are responsible for a fourth grade child's tears and grief and a wife's widowhood after only three days of witnessing the death of her husband. The virus took him in three days. Every person that ever spoke ill of vaccines should be charged with at the very least a public nuisance crime.
