Daily Reflection:
Friday, May 22, 2020
My friends, our Parishioner, Kathy Gerhard, shares some childhood memories that can be of help to us today.
We have been here before. We will be here again. It is all part of living on this Planet, Earth, which continues to evolve, in a Universe that continues to expand!
All is mystery! But we are in God’s hands…nothing to fear. We trust and we surrender to the reality in which we find ourselves.
--Fr. Mike
Keep Hopeful!
Greetings to my Faith Family of St. Thomas More! I hope you are keeping yourselves safe and finding things to keep you from boredom as we continue our stay at home. I am so grateful to Fr. Mike and the STM staff for being in touch with us daily online. I feel I learned so much more about them and have grown to truly love my Parish and those who keep it going over these many weeks! Staying hopeful sometimes is a challenge for me because I am so anxious to see my friends and family again for real, and to be able to give them hugs. I am sure you feel the same. 2020 is a unique leap year…it has 29 days in February, 300 days in March and 5 years in April. Oh yes--and wearing a mask inside your home is now highly recommended. Not so much to prevent COVID-19 but to stop eating!
I was thinking back to a time of my childhood when we had to keep our social distance, stay at home, and be conscientious about hand washing. It was in the early to mid-50’s when the dreaded polio virus reared its ugly head. In August especially, my sisters and I were not allowed to go to the town swimming pool, movies, or spend time with our neighborhood playmates. We stayed home and did jigsaw puzzles, read books, played board games with each other, and found ways to amuse ourselves (no TV at our house yet!) One summer my mother received a phone call that one of my classmates had come down with bulbar polio--a most feared and dangerous type that many people who contracted it did not survive. It attacked the lungs so quickly and severely that one was dead within a few days. When my Mom told me that Wanda had died, I was shocked and so sad. Nothing had touched me as strongly as this news, at the tender age of nine, nor have I ever forgotten this time in my life. I remember going to her funeral, it was all so surreal. Within a few years, the vaccine for polio was made available and it no longer was a threat.
My dear friends, this coronavirus too will someday be conquered as polio was. In the meantime, keep in touch with each other, keep hopeful, and keep Christ by your side.
--Kathy Gerhard
