Fear, faith and earning our bread
Thoughts from the editor
April 29, 2020
Sheila Harris
What kind of people will we be when this social and economic cataclysm is over? I wonder.
If I was superstitious, I would suspect my winter foray into Barry County’s Civil War history - with its wrenching accounts of mayhem, murder and deprivation - brought this mess to pass. In spite of the differences in time and technology, there are some parallels that can be drawn. Thankfully, though, today's bullets are - for the most part - metaphorical.
In spite of the fact that I’ve lived in Barry County for 40-plus years, a visit to the George Washington Carver monument in December was my first inkling of how perilous times were for Southwest Missouri residents during the Civil War.
My subsequent delve into the past began on a sunny Sunday in January, when I set off for old Barry County cemeteries, wondering if perchance I could find tombstones of Civil War veterans. I thought it might be a futile effort, but reality proved me wrong. In just three of the cemeteries I visited that day, I found numerous graves of both Union and Confederate veterans. The significance didn’t escape me.
Nor did the winter sun casting long shadows across the graves of multiple toddlers and infants – many from the same families – do much to warm my heart.
That wintery image, seared into my eyelids, reappeared when I closed them that night.
The next morning, my daughter called to inform me they were taking my six-week-old granddaughter to the hospital by ambulance. She was struggling to breathe from a sudden onset of RSV, a respiratory virus which quickly becomes acute for newborns.
I’m not superstitious, but those tombstones were still etched into my mind.
At the hospital, she spent a few days in ICU, where she was intubated and put on a ventilator to give her lungs a chance to rest. She recovered, but with scar tissue partially obstructing her airway, a result of damage inadvertently caused by the intubation. She’ll outgrow the problem, doctors say. In the meantime, we were told to attempt to prevent her from catching even a common respiratory virus - not to mention COVID-19.
I've been abruptly thrown into fear. Not for myself, but for my granddaughter. Or maybe it’s the same thing. When little ones arrive, they make a large imprint. What we didn't know we needed becomes inconceivable to do without.
Strange how fear affects us. It renders us immobile.
Some things are not in our control, and that's what's scary.
We can only be practical in the face of this new virus. Do the right preventative things: social distance, keep our hands away from our faces, wash them frequently. Still, some stray germ may breach our airway.
Can we be as close as we once were, or will suspicion be our new norm?
When we begin to treat people as numbers - the fifth or sixth case of COVID-19, for example - we’re venturing into a “brave new world,” and not a very pleasant one.
It’s certain we can’t live by bread alone. Human interaction is nice occasionally.
Nor can we feel good about ourselves if we’re not working for the bread we do receive.
We’ll have to venture back out - at the risk of being shot from behind our plows, as were a few Barry County residents trying to put bread on their tables during and after the Civil War.
Bushwhackers didn’t discriminate, nor will a virus.
Can we ever let our guard down? I wonder.
That’s where faith comes in, I guess. Mine’s a little shaky.
Will I wish I had spent more time with my granddaughter, instead of keeping her at arm’s length for her own good? Probably. But perhaps my distancing has factored into her apparent good health.
Some answers are unknowable.
So, then, are some questions better left unasked?
If I was superstitious, I would suspect my winter foray into Barry County’s Civil War history - with its wrenching accounts of mayhem, murder and deprivation - brought this mess to pass. In spite of the differences in time and technology, there are some parallels that can be drawn. Thankfully, though, today's bullets are - for the most part - metaphorical.
In spite of the fact that I’ve lived in Barry County for 40-plus years, a visit to the George Washington Carver monument in December was my first inkling of how perilous times were for Southwest Missouri residents during the Civil War.
My subsequent delve into the past began on a sunny Sunday in January, when I set off for old Barry County cemeteries, wondering if perchance I could find tombstones of Civil War veterans. I thought it might be a futile effort, but reality proved me wrong. In just three of the cemeteries I visited that day, I found numerous graves of both Union and Confederate veterans. The significance didn’t escape me.
Nor did the winter sun casting long shadows across the graves of multiple toddlers and infants – many from the same families – do much to warm my heart.
That wintery image, seared into my eyelids, reappeared when I closed them that night.
The next morning, my daughter called to inform me they were taking my six-week-old granddaughter to the hospital by ambulance. She was struggling to breathe from a sudden onset of RSV, a respiratory virus which quickly becomes acute for newborns.
I’m not superstitious, but those tombstones were still etched into my mind.
At the hospital, she spent a few days in ICU, where she was intubated and put on a ventilator to give her lungs a chance to rest. She recovered, but with scar tissue partially obstructing her airway, a result of damage inadvertently caused by the intubation. She’ll outgrow the problem, doctors say. In the meantime, we were told to attempt to prevent her from catching even a common respiratory virus - not to mention COVID-19.
I've been abruptly thrown into fear. Not for myself, but for my granddaughter. Or maybe it’s the same thing. When little ones arrive, they make a large imprint. What we didn't know we needed becomes inconceivable to do without.
Strange how fear affects us. It renders us immobile.
Some things are not in our control, and that's what's scary.
We can only be practical in the face of this new virus. Do the right preventative things: social distance, keep our hands away from our faces, wash them frequently. Still, some stray germ may breach our airway.
Can we be as close as we once were, or will suspicion be our new norm?
When we begin to treat people as numbers - the fifth or sixth case of COVID-19, for example - we’re venturing into a “brave new world,” and not a very pleasant one.
It’s certain we can’t live by bread alone. Human interaction is nice occasionally.
Nor can we feel good about ourselves if we’re not working for the bread we do receive.
We’ll have to venture back out - at the risk of being shot from behind our plows, as were a few Barry County residents trying to put bread on their tables during and after the Civil War.
Bushwhackers didn’t discriminate, nor will a virus.
Can we ever let our guard down? I wonder.
That’s where faith comes in, I guess. Mine’s a little shaky.
Will I wish I had spent more time with my granddaughter, instead of keeping her at arm’s length for her own good? Probably. But perhaps my distancing has factored into her apparent good health.
Some answers are unknowable.
So, then, are some questions better left unasked?