How are you all managing this unprecedented time of COVID-19, the stay at home policies and sudden stoppage of your income? Not only has your income (for many of us) stopped because you can’t go to work but that comes with even more challenges like, how to manage your household with your children staying home – maybe you have to home school them – and additional burden of how to manage shopping for groceries and other basic needs. Do you even own a mask?
When I started writing this column “This Too Shall Pass”, my principal message was to ty and stay positive. I know that’s a tough challenge, especially for many of us, experiencing a total collapse of everything we need and depend on to sustain a livelihood – just putting food on the table and tending to the needs of your children and your family. Words like “This Too Shall Pass” are cheap; its easy for me to say that but how does it play out in real, everyday life. If that’s how you’re feeling as you read these words, please accept that I am praying for you. My heart goes out to you, although I don’t know you by name or face – there are millions of Americans, Ohioan, folks in our county and community – I pray for you all.
And it’s easy for me to say good and positive things about how fortunate we are, as Ohioans and living in Summit County, where we have excellent leaders who truly care for their constituents and continue to do whatever are in their powers to make our lives just bit better in spite of all the negative headwinds facing them. I know how difficult it is to think of anything but your own dilemma and unmanageable situations but if I can just ask, pause for a moment, take just 30 seconds to silently thank them in your heart. And also, please include all the folks who are exposing themselves into harm’s way – the nurses and doctors, the workers in the grocery stores and nursing homes and postal delivery folks and so many others, just so we can continue to at least provide for the bare necessities.
Well, so much for the gloom and doom, let me focus on what’s bright and happy, as we slowly ease into spring and sunshine and warmer days. It’s the plants – wow. We’ve started our own green house in our breezeway, planting all kinds of seeds, creating a lighting system complete with a warming pad and the miracles of nature didn’t disappoint. Things are popping up, all over. We will have tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers, sunflower, basil, parsley, zucchini, egg plants. It’s simply amazing to me, we can grow all these eatable things because nature originally design it that way – how a tiny seed will germinate, sprout a seedling and grow into a leafy plant with eventual fruit! We’re fortunate, we’re no longer hunters’ and gatherers. We’ve learned how to plant and grow things and reap the harvest. We need to stop and consider these good things, even as we struggle to get through the coronavirus thing.
Bill Melver
Akron, Ohio
“Bill Melver is an interesting local personality, having founded the Akron Life & Leisure Magazine in 2002, ran for mayor of Akron in 2015 and now an aspiring author with his first book “An American Samurai: Born to Righteousness”, will be released soon. You can also learn more about Bill on his website www.BillMelver.com
