Trying To Keep You Alive

 I got another shot this past weekend. 

It made me sore and tired for a day and change. 

It did not give me coronavirus. 

It did not make me magnetic. 

It did not make me a better American.

It made me a little less susceptible to the disease that has killed more than five million people in less than two years. The muscle aches and the over-inflated feeling seem like a pretty good bargain, all things considered. Last week, my wife attended the memorial service for the matriarch of the family that lived across the street from us for all those years. 

She died from COVID-19. She was not vaccinated. Her family will spend the rest of their lives knowing this. She was fifty-five. Her grown children and her grandchildren and all those who knew her know this. 

I know this. I was already planning on getting a booster vaccine, but this news hastened that response. I set aside a day, Sunday, for feeling like I had extra air in my head and veins. Nothing that kept me from going about my business. Just a little bit slower and a little bit more careful. 

Because that's what we are doing now: being careful. Or at least that is what we should be doing. There are still those who insist on clinging to their conspiracy of fear and ignorance. I suppose I can understand the fear part, since five million dead is a pretty horrifying reality. The ignorance is easily cured, if one was predisposed to the acquisition of knowledge. For those who live inside the bubble where new learning is kept out by defenses instilled by another age, please believe this: There are still millions more doing everything they can to keep you alive in spite of your unwillingness to play along on this mitigation effort. 

It took me a couple hours from the time I scheduled to the moment the needle went into my arm to get my part done. It was free. It only took a little of my time. Then it made me slow down for a day, which was fine considering the pace of modern-day life. And when I got to school the very next day, I put my mask on in spite of my extra dose of life-saving vaccine. 

Because that's what we are doing now: trying to keep people alive.