Plagues

With Hurricane Isais approaching, I jokingly texted my brother that frogs and locusts were next, a reference to the ten plagues visited upon the Egyptians to force Pharaoh to allow the Jews to leave. “As long as we don’t get ‘death of the first born,’” he joked in return. Of course the irony is that COVID-19, a plague of death, was the first, rather than the last plague to descend upon us. The storm, although it did bring death and destruction elsewhere, was here just an added indignity, coming when we were already demoralized by the virus.

As I hunkered down listening to the howling wind and rain and watching the trees sway, I found myself wondering how much more I would have to endure before this is over. I am so tired of being afraid. A friend of mine who has had several major (and expensive) issues with her house recently, lost power and is still cleaning up and throwing out food. “2020 has been a bad year,” she said, without even mentioning the pandemic. We have become so inured to the fear and uncertainty of that plague that she didn’t even realize the irony of her complaint.

We humans, for all our accomplishments, are still powerless in the face of violent natural phenomena like hurricanes. When I was working and would be home during a storm, I can remember reflecting that it was evidence of some power greater than us, a humbling reminder of our limitations. Now I wonder, is the virus another of these reminders?  

There will always be plagues. We can find vaccines and cures, perhaps more quickly each time, but we can’t prevent them. The true test of our humanity is not conquering the inevitable, but the ways in which we care for each other when it happens.