Lately, I've been playing in my head a song from "The Wizard of Oz." Background voices sang this song as Dorothy and her fellow travelers escaped the dark woods and were skipping across the fields toward the Emerald City: "You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night. Step into the sun, step into the light. ... "
Maybe I'm pushing things a bit, but I believe we have some reason for cautious optimism these days. As more people are vaccinated and the number of COVID cases decreases, the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to shine a bit more.
I went back and read the Senior Scene article I wrote a year ago in March 2020. It began, "It's an understatement to say that we're living in stressful times with the spread of the coronavirus. I suppose uncertainty causes more stress than just about anything, and we're experiencing more than our share of that." I tried to end the article with a hopeful note: "It is my hope that we all will find our way to the other side of this stressful situation with a minimum of fallout."
I certainly can't say that the fallout has been "minimal.'"Many have died, many have lost jobs, and many lives have been turned upside-down. This has been an unpleasant year, to say the least.
But now as we dip our toe into normalcy, I'm reminded of just how resilient we humans are. The pandemic caused life to nearly grind to a halt for a while, but it is not defeating us. The pandemic stifled our activities but is not stifling our spirit.
Regardless of the crisis, our culture has always been able to land on its feet. My parents were raised during the Great Depression and World War II. I was raised during the Vietnam era. Our daughter turned 20 the year the World Trade Center was attacked. And now our grandchildren are growing up in a world of social distancing and face masks. In the course of every crisis, we figure out how to land on our feet. We never come out unscathed or unchanged, but we come out nonetheless.
So, we're almost out of the woods, almost out of the dark, almost out of the night. I see brighter days ahead.
If you've been having trouble getting back on your feet mentally and emotionally over the past year, call us at 622-3580. Perhaps we can help.