My daughter Kristen, an ICU nurse in a COVID unit in Dallas, posted this video with a caption of gratitude: “When your patient rapidly declines and all hands are on deck. What an amazing team of people I work with. Thank you so much for all your help today…”
What strikes me most from this video is that all these people are trying to save ONE LIFE THAT MATTERS. Think about that. This ONE LIFE MATTERS. This person matters to the people who love him or her. When people scoff at the seriousness of this virus, I wish they would consider the ONE LIFE (and many more) that they are impacting with their selfishness and refusal to acknowledge the pain they are inflicting on everyone by insisting that their right to do X, Y, Z matters more than even ONE LIFE.
As Kristen’s mom, HER LIFE MATTERS SO MUCH TO ME, and she and her colleagues are risking their lives daily to try to save even ONE LIFE. This is why I am enraged by the callousness of doubters, of those who demand the country reopen, of those who support the president in spite of his abdication of duty to his citizens. This is why I will never forgive you for your support of him. This is why our relationship will never be the same: because your selfishness refuses to value even ONE LIFE other than your own, and perhaps that of the fetid mass of narcissism that you love so much.