As Americans, it has been hard to adjust to the new call to wear masks. We are a people who greatly value our freedom, and we are also very image-conscious. However, now is not the time to flatter our vanity. Now is the time to show love and care for our brothers and sisters. I know, masks hide most of the face (that's kind of the point, but it's still hard to get over), and they can feel restricting and be perceived as dehumanizing. But that is not the message we should read on the faces of people wearing masks.
I come from an immuno-compromised family. My mother has several chronic immune diseases as well as high blood pressure. My sister and I have both inherited a few of these conditions from her. As a result, we are at higher risk than most people and I have gotten to know what wearing a mask really means. It means protection. Not just of myself, but also for every person around me. My mom would be one of the people who would be hospitalized if she contracted COVID-19. My sister would most likely be one of the people with long-lasting complications from the virus. I can't risk their safety. So I wear masks in public. Yeah, it's awkward sometimes. Like when you run into a friend in the grocery store, and you're wearing black winter gloves and an intense face covering that looks like a Sith Lord's mask. But even this scary ensemble is really saying, "I care about you. I will not let my self-image stand in the way of keeping you safe. I will wear this mask like a warrior, and I will not be ashamed."
Because the reality is that we are warriors. We are fighting to protect our country. We cannot afford to dig our heels in and insist that things go back to normal, that the intruder leaves. It probably won't, at least for a while. That's the unfortunate truth. We most certainly cannot try to force normality and say that we should just open back up and accept the loss of life that occurs. It's a very easy trap to fall into. When we think of a few hundred or even a few thousand deaths occurring, it might not seem like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, especially if we don't know the people. After all, we'd just be losing the weak people, the people who are already at risk from other things. But do you know what we're really saying, what that statement truly means? It means looking me and my sister and my mother in the face and telling us that our deaths and the deaths of many other folks are an acceptable price to pay in order to go back to normal life. It means that we would rather have our freedom than our friends and family. Because I'm almost positive that you know and love a great many people who are immuno-compromised. You just don't know it.
Here, I'd like to jump in and say that I'm not here to judge. Truth be told, I've thought some of these things before, and I'm in the high-risk group. We are all human, and we make mistakes, myself included. Before COVID-19 had really picked up its pace, I was one of the people who honestly believed that it wasn't any worse than the average flu. But I've learned differently now, and I'm trying to help fight it by making masks more fun. I believe that we are to show love to everyone, even those we don't know and those we dislike. What better way to do that at a time like this than to help encourage everyone to put on their battle gear? We may be Americans, but we are first and foremost humans, created in the image of something greater than ourselves. Let's act like it and show that we care about everyone, even those whose weakness we can't see. As Dr. Seuss said in one of his children's books, "A person's a person no matter how small."
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