Dear Emma,

Day 5 and I am still not able to talk …much.  It starts off hoarse, then disappears completely.  So naturally, I cannot work since I counsel on the phone.  Too much time to think.  I think about what I would  do when I do retire.   It has to be planned…a bit of travelling, volunteering, taking courses I’ve never had time to take, learning a new skill, dusting off and perfecting an old skill and all of this is done with human contact.  So you can see my dilemma, right?  For over two years we have been living in a world of no contact whatsoever to 2 metre human contact. Face masks are being removed tomorrow and I don’t see why except governments just want to appease the “fed-ups” and try to establish some form of normalcy.  Yes, masks do protect…both you and me.

Last week we had our dryer vents cleaned in our condo building for all 27 co-owners.  The 2 workers walked around with no masks, then saw my colleague and I had ours on, so one put his on and the other took a good 2 to 3 minutes searching for his ratty old cloth mask (to me did not give me confidence one bit).  And at each condo, the fellow would ask if he had to wear his mask.  Of course the answer was, “Yes, please and I will wear mine as well.”  I shook my head in dismay and made faces that no one could see thanks to my mask. Haha, there are good points to wearing a mask!

Speaking of masks and the reality we all live in, I try not to watch the news lately…makes me weep hearing anything bad and let’s face it, Emma, 99% of the news is bad. Correction, the media reports bad news in huge proportions.  It is interesting that we complain how governments have held us hostage for two years…but what about the media?  Have they not enjoyed this control? this total attention especially during total lock downs?  Anyway, to do the work that I love and to be able to have the strength to hear challenging true stories of pain, abuse and despair, I need to cut off the bad news, thank you very much.  The only news I can read about now and then is politics because that does not make me sad…it angers me and I feel a little less powerless….I can always vote, right?    I could protest as well but that means I may be putting my health at risk since, after all, I am of that more delicate generation where health is a bit more fragile.  So I sigh and give in to my fear of getting sick and stay home and shout at the tele and  swear at politicians.  I have given up writing to them because I never even get the courtesy of an acknowledgement.  I’m of the anglophone population, so they (all political parties) don’t really care.  We are such a minority that politicians are sucking up to the majority, the nationalists and the xenophobes.   The nationalists don’t scare me because many have a view for a separate nation but do not hate anglophones or allophones.  There is a difference, I think.  Most of my friends are francophones and nationalists but I don’t feel any animosity towards me.

It is interesting that the media talks about how my province has little tolerance to other cultures but that is actually a “condition” many people have all over Canada.  We like to look towards the South and see how our neighbours cough up venom towards  liberalism and democracy and acceptance and multiculturalism.  But Canadians are not lily white…not pure and innocent, I am afraid and this pandemic has brought out the true colours of many people.  The virus of intolerance we see in the South is here as well and that worries me. NO! That scares me.

I’m a baby Boomer and have much less time left on this earth than many but I worry for my children and their children.

Oh for goodness sake, Emma, this is turning into a sappy Dear Abby letter.  What was really on my mind when I started this post was after reading a headline this morning.  “Covid Numbers are going down in Quebec, 25 deaths”.  How is “25 deaths” supposed to make me feel relieved.  Every day I see similar headlines but it is the last 2 words that hit me each time.  “xx deaths”.  People are mourning their loved ones; each day there are still deaths and that is what saddens me. We no longer hear the premier saying, “sorry to the family and friends of xx deaths”.  That stopped a long time ago.  Why? Are these deaths less hurtful?  It’s all a strategy to focus more on the positive because people are depressed.  I know that! I hear the stories 3 days a week from youths and young adults…I know that! But still, each day there are losses. A person has lost a friend or relative.  They are mourning.  I wish I could say, ” I see you, I’m sorry for your loss.”

The CBC used to give space to people who had lost a family member to talk about their lives the first year of the pandemic and now…we no longer celebrate their lives here?

My thoughts and prayers go to the family and friends of those 25 deaths today …

Clr’2022-05-13