Enlighten Me...

I stood at my front door this morning, watching the rain fall and enjoying all of the Spring pleasures of greens, pinks, yellows, reds, colors which we normally never see during our long winters.  While standing at the door, relishing the lushness surrounding me, I thought to myself, if I take a picture of what my eyes are seeing at this moment no one would have a clue what is going on in this world. I feel safe when I am walking outside, keeping my distance from anyone near me, but thoughts of going into a restaurant, being on a crowded beach, sending children back to school, even going to church has me frightened. It's difficult for me to wrap my head around this article that appeared in our local newspaper...

Their thinking, as alluded to in a Naperville Sun article, is that despite what medical experts say about prematurely easing stay-at-home orders, an educated population can figure out what to do for themselves. And, that continuing to go without park facilities is a bigger problem for the city's population than the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

This is basically saying, let's ignore what our national experts warn against, that opening up too soon could be deadly to many, but instead it's more important to open our public parks and our Naperville Swimming Pool and let the "educated population" figure it out. Our most educated population is saying "not a good idea". Getting people safely back to work would seem to me to be more important than having a fun day at Centennial Beach. I know everybody has their own opinions about this current "lock-down", many feeling it is taking away their rights to certain freedoms but I don't see it as taking away our freedoms, but protecting us for our freedoms.

I'm really deeply disturbed when I think that our leaders did not prepare us for all of this devastation, did not have enough protective equipment for our front line workers, did not warn us of the danger that was coming, and now want to rush back into "normalcy" way way too soon. Yesterday I actually saw friends I knew due to a surprise birthday drive by parade for a good friend's birthday for the first time since March 11th. Afterwards I stopped my car to chat with another really good friend, social distancing ofcourse. I so wanted to reach out and give her a big hug and I know eventually that will happen, but not for awhile. Maybe not for a long while if we keep ignoring the warnings that our TOP medical experts keep relaying.

I normally don't sound off like this, I am usually a very positive person, love life and all that it offers, but ignoring the warnings and hearing that Illinois public health officials yesterday announced 138 new deaths reported from COVID-19, among 3,239 newly identified cases. That makes for a total of 3,928 deaths and 87,937 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Almost 3,500 new cases as of yesterday and our city mayor wants to open our parks and swimming pool. Someone needs to enlighten me on the reasoning behind this. 

I'll stop my ranting, I just don't want to be one of those statistics. So I will choose to stay away from the parks and the swimming pools, will only go to a restaurant for curbside service, will wear a mask whenever I am in a public place, such as Walgreens and grocery stores, go the Morton Arboretum when it opens but remain a safe distance from everyone where it's easy to do with their 1,700 acres, and continue to pray that someday we will conquere this villian that has changed all of our lives. 

Until next time, stay safe, stay well,