Pandemic of 2020, a poem

2020 is a time that we didn’t predict. With a virus so vicious, governments were forced to restrict.

Schools had to close, businesses too. Our daily lives changed, drastically, from what we knew.

All, who were able to, worked from home. We were told to stay indoors and not to roam.

Just to go out for food and such. Keep six feet from other people, and watch what you touch.

Wash your hands as much as you could, keeping your hands off your face for the greater good.

Because the virus is so contagious we must do this. It not, we put the vulnerable at risk.

So children and their grandparents would have to take a break, from being with one another, as long as it would take.

Experts in health and medicine worked around the clock, to figure out models and transmission that they had to block.

Social Distancing became the new norm. Relating to each other had to take a different form.

Calling and texting as we had done before. Yet this wasn’t enough we had to utilize more.

So we learned to use apps like Facetime and Zoom, to replace meetings in person, you would work from your room.

These are slight inconveniences in the wake of this war. Our health care workers had to deal with much more.

They put their lives at risk, each day they went to work. Not knowing for sure where this virus could lurk.

Not only for themselves, but their loved ones too. What if they brought it home, then what would they do?

The magnitude of this virus, didn’t take long to explode. It was moving so fast, the health care systems could implode.

Our leaders and military had to work fast, creating hospitals in places, never used in the past.

See this virus was different, for those who got really ill. Some would need ventilators, so this virus didn’t kill.

Giving patients oxygen and treatments to help them get well, was only one aspect of this virus from hell.

Because normally we would be there, by our ill, loved one’s side. We had new rules for visiting that we had to abide.

Since this virus was so transmissible, we had to contain its spread, which meant your loved one would be without family, by their hospital bed. So hard to fathom, how difficult and cruel. For when they needed you most, you were left out of this duel.

So not only did health care workers have to help with the cure; they had to act as family and friends, to keep everyone mentally secure.

And to add insult to injury, if a loved one should pass, you couldn’t have a proper service, memorial or Mass.

This story isn’t over, no not yet. Our country is in trouble with tremendous debt. When would it be over, when would it cease. This COVID-19 is stealing our peace.

We are praying and hoping, there will soon be a cure, for this crazy pandemic that we all must endure. Everyone is suffering, we want it to end. We need our world and people, to heal and to mend.

Amen!

Lenore T. Franzese

Warwick

April 13, 2020