The Day After January 20, 2021
On January 20, I was fortunate to be working in a patient’s home whose political beliefs are aligned with mine.
Yesterday I joined my patient in his living room and watched the inauguration unfold. We sat across the room from each other to be socially distant, both wearing our masks. He frequently admonished his 4 and 7 year daughters to put their masks on while in the same room, or to leave the room and find something to do. It was surreal that we have come to this — -having to protect yourself and your children from anyone coming into your bubble. It made watching the events unfold on television an odd combination of emotions for me…..part elation, part profound sadness, part fear, and part anger.
I unsuccessfully choked back tears to witness first the Vice President, and then the President take their oath. I finally stopped trying to hide my tears, as it was pretty obvious I couldn’t.
The children continued to come in and out of the room, oblivious to what was taking place. I tried to remember my own childhood when my only job was to be a little girl without the heavy burden of grief or responsibility.
And I am telling you that for me the first day that I realized that the world was fragile was that day in Dallas, Texas — — November 22, 1963. That was the first day in my young life that I realized that life can change in the blink of an eye. Before that day, I was still a little girl. A few days after that event, I was watching television when Jack Ruby executed Lee Harvey Oswald on a live broadcast.
I was just 8 years old.
After that day, a series of assassinations unfolded and the horrors of the Vietnam war would be broadcast on the evening news every night. For me, the loss would culminate with the death of my father in November 1965.
In just 2 short years, the turmoil of the 1960s would weave worry and loss into my psyche. I’m sure that many people in my age group who experienced this have similar long term PTSD that was awakened all from the last four years of turmoil.
All throughout the inauguration I worried that the new administration was going to be harmed. I was really nervous during the time that they left their cars and marched to the White House. After watching the insurrection from two weeks ago, I didn’t have the confidence that we would not be witness to an assassination. I recognized yesterday in watching the children play around me that I lost the ability to look at the world with innocence a long time ago.
It isn’t a sense of pessimism as much as it bearing witness to events that turn your world upside down. I still want the best for me, and most of all for everyone. I still want to believe. I still want to hope for the best, without thinking about the worst outcome.
So today is day #2 of our new world.
We have hope again.
The world isn’t perfect.
We worked hard to effect change. There will be resistance. It will take some time to erase some of what has happened in the last four years.
Hopefully our children and grandchildren will not have to carry the scars, or the burden.
And maybe, we can put those childhood memories back into the recesses of our mind……never to forget, but as a lesson of how far we’ve come.
