How are you?

We all ask this question, carefully, probing. Many of us have dealt with death during this hugless time. The silent heart-wails of loneliness must by now reach the heavens.

Some people have become bitter, or hang on to.the denialist equivalent of temper trantrums in a child. Some of us adopt the be of good cheer and carry on attitude.

We in our caregiving sisterhood do neither. We are already so used to suffering that COVID makes it worse, but is just one more addition to what we carry and what we have witnessed about love, greed, and relentless tragedy.

The same for me. COVID is just another layering on to a decade and a half of caregiving grief.

I am very happy with my life and work, to be clear. I laugh and smile and love the fresh breeze, the rain, the sun and green shoots. I wish i could live only and forever in that pleasant, priveleged state of mind.

But underneath it all, the life i am continuimg for myself – the friendships, the projects, the achievements – there is the inevitable on-going cheerful caregiving – no longer walks, now spoon-feeding while my love flits in and out of the present.

So I dread mornings, when i have to.emerge from.great healing dreams and enter one more day of the same reality.

I feel, to.be honest, like a mostly happy optimistic person, who has been daily crying – even though I’m not! – for a hundred years.