7/27/21                                             A Reckoning

The first Kendal resident (who is living in the Care Center) just tested positive for COVID. The community is shocked and saddened. Thankfully, this person is already recovering in a negative pressure room in a hallway specifically designed to prevent any possible spread of contagion.

We had been so careful and so lucky. We are sobered. We all slid back to stricter safety measures. We remember that vaccines are not 100% effective, that we produce fewer antibodies than the young, that the emerging variants are more contagious. I am restricted from accessing the rest of Kendal again for two weeks. But I am also well cared for, safe. I am trying to get my arms around the ongoing nature of our long journey. I am calling on the wisdom of love, the strength of compassion.

 Books of Reckoning

The gray fog of isolation swallowed you whole

weighed down by loneliness, severed by separation

arms and hands too disabled to reach out

Restrictions imposed on you slammed shut door after door

complaints erupted in helpless defiance of safety vs. freedom

the need to know whose facts justified those rules

You struggled to comprehend the sweep of what we lost

inspiring reinvention, rewiring, redesigning

seeking reconnections new and healthy

on top of still sturdy foundations

Despite these individual reactions inside of our community bubble

so far, not even one of us or those we gratefully employ

died from this still evolving virus

The days of reckoning our books, our health

find us in good standing so far

though it is not over, and we were never suffering alone

The world beyond lost millions- Millions-

one million children orphaned

half a million without grandparents

we all are orphaned by the loss of ideals, by kindness submerged in fearful hate

Losses-Losses-Losses

the entire World Body ravaged by a pandemic

reckoning results of ignorance and greed

that are not over

all is coming due… and yet

Look to our young and old hearts, shaped by this same sere crisis

unfold into the future

nothing is foretold

all is in the telling

May we be held accountable

May we be sustained through clear vision and nurturing

an abundance of true stories reckoned worthy to be told

around new hearths

for generations upon generations

by Judi Bachrach