Come, dear daughter, let me tell you a story.
One day a party was thrown, and the nations of the world were invited. The world came, ate, drank and generally had a good time. But when it was all over, she came back ill. It's said that she'd contracted a deadly virus, one that went by the nickname Covid -19.
To combat this, the world shut down. Schools, businesses, religious centres, corporate bodies, and borders; closed. All forms of social gatherings were prohibited. In their place, social distancing and maintaining good hygiene were initiated as preventive measures against the spread of this illness: a shut down like never before seen by anyone who lived at that time.
People worked from home, shopped from home, worshipped at home and generally conducted their businesses from home. The market places, roads and busy squares turned ghost towns. The streets, overrun by wild animals, death its sole pedestrian. Economies took a hit and world power changed hands.
The world as we knew it had changed. Everywhere one looked, something was different.
The virus brought with it its fair share of grief and took its toll on everyone and everything. Governments and healthcare systems were overwhelmed in the struggle to keep up with the ailing. Citizens were overwhelmed with fear and anxieties, struggling to make sense of their collective reality.
Fear, not because it was the first time the world had faced a pandemic but because of the many unknowns that accompanied the virus. Anxiety because no one knew what or who the next victim would be.
And so, we sat, behind closed doors, hoping for a miracle, not knowing when it would all be over. Hope for a solution was scarce.
It did not take us by surprise, now that I think about it. Many of us just didn't consider it serious enough to take preventive measures early, until we found ourselves in a siege, dealing with a scourge some say had long been foretold.
One day a party was thrown and the nations of the world were invited. The world ate, drank, partied and forgot to wash its hands. And we paid a dear price for it.
But soon afterwards, even in those trying times, Mother Earth took deep laboured breaths, as she struggled to renew herself.
Photo Credit: Vectorstock.com
Photo Credit: Vectorstock.com
