COVID-19, YES OR NO
Yesterday I sat in an examination room at a local health clinic near where I live struggling with the tension of would It be a yes or a no on my Covid-19 test; five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed; they said I’d get my results in just a few minutes — A minute can be a long time in these situations.
The thoughts of what a yes would mean to my wife and me at our age and with our health problems had been running up and down my whole nervous system and flesh since I got honest with myself about the symptoms I was having and remembering all the stores I have to visit every week and the times I hadn’t been as careful as I should have been.
I squeezed down hard with my will power to control my thoughts, but it didn’t help, they just kept popping up and out every second or two. I was feeling that completely illogical, crazy thing us humans feel at the prospect of our death, that feeling that our world and our loved ones may not be able to manage without us. I counsel other people about this kind of thought but here I was having them.
Mercifully, my brain got tired of struggling with all these predictable thoughts, thoughts bordering on self-pity, and quietly lifted me into the philosophical realm for a little peace which eased my chattering brain and helped me take my eyes off my watch.
I thought of how short my life has been; I could see way back in the beginning. I could see my life like one single day, one of the billions of days that has dawned on this earth, born at its appointed time, breaking soft, beautiful, and innocent like me; moving then into its bright lighted tumultuous experiences and finally ebbing into the same darkness, from which it came, its story of light told one more time and for me, another chapter in my eternal life told complete in the book of life and days.
This is the reality I believe in and I began to pray from my mouth and heart, “Praise be to Thee Almighty God, praise be to Thee Almighty God and thank You, Father, for Your life that I am living and for Your love that You are giving me to love You with.”
There was a soft knock at the door and a man covered in medical garb from head to foot handed me a paper and said, “You’re fine, no Covid-19”. He was so cheerful; I thanked him profusely and rushed home to tell Verma.
Jack