Together
When good things happened, we came together to celebrate. When bad things happened, we came together to mourn. When frightening things happened, we came together to reassure each other. We found our strength and comfort in each other, and our togetherness was as natural as breathing. We didn't know any other way to be, to live.
Then, in December of 2019, something changed, though we didn't know it quite yet. There were news stories of a new illness, a virus, spreading through Wuhan, China. It was making many people very ill, and no one knew what it was, or how to stop it. Many people payed it little mind, until it began spreading rapidly and uncontrollably. People in America entered a state of full blown panic as it started spreading here, quickly making its way to every state. It was a frightening illness, and it was deadly.
Suddenly, life as we knew it changed all at once. For the first time, we could not come together for comfort. When our friends and family began to die, we could not come together to mourn. People died alone, or with nurses beside them in place of their families.
It was in this time that we had to learn to come together in other ways. Because, alone, we could not survive this. And so, from our own separate homes, we came together. Many people lost their lives, and even more had to pick up the pieces of what they previously had. Many of us got through it, some with scarred lungs from surviving the virus, and even more with battered hearts and bruised souls. Everything around us had changed forever.
All we had was each other. One way or another, we came together, and for that, we are strong.