Two Years Gone By

Today I am grateful for health care workers who keep serving and scientists who keep researching. Their tenacious efforts over these two years of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be understated. I am grateful for my own continued health and for perspective.

Two years ago this weekend, my part of the world was really beginning to feel the huge impact that the pandemic was about to have on our daily lives.  I wrote 19 Gratitudes to Counter COVID-19 then. As I read it now, these words grab me:

It has been crazy, uncharted territory we have found ourselves in. For those of us living in the U.S., it has really just been the last few days that have opened our eyes wide to the potential for many sick people, weeks of shutdowns, unknown economic impacts, normalcy thrown out the window in many ways we usually take for granted.

What can we do to manage in such uncertain times? What can we do to keep ourselves healthy and grounded so we can be of help to others, or have a better chance of recovering if we catch the virus?

A year later, I wrote 19 Gratitudes After a Year of COVID-19. 

Two years later, the landscape is forever changed, but day-to-day living isn't as heavily impacted. Vaccines have gone into arms and masks have come off faces. So many grieve the loss of loved ones, and we all grieve the events that didn't happen, the visits we couldn't make, the sense of normalcy we will never fully know again. 

The sun is coming up today, shining in my face as I type this. Spring is coming in our part of the world, and so is a spring break road trip for us. Our stories continue, and within mine is a large dose of ongoing gratefulness. 

There won't be a list of 19 this year, but here are two pictures from early in the pandemic. They tell me that patience and tenacity help in difficult times. Indeed, they do. Onward!