Choose Kindness: How the Start of the Pandemic put us all into a Better Mindset

This article was written in March 2020, and was published for Melodrama on TAPinto. It was the very beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic. We first began to discover Zoom calls and went for walks with family. We slowed down. The world was in upheaval, but there was a silver lining.

It feels like September 11 out there.

Yesterday, I ventured out to ShopRite. Everyone was smiling at everyone else. Those looks said, “We are all in this together.”

I remember those looks. They followed those horrible weeks after the Towers came down.

Now, at home, we check on our senior citizen neighbors.

In the grocery store, we are mindful of items that have the WIC symbol on them so they are available for those who must buy them.

We offer to pick up prescription items for those who are at higher risk.

We share our rolls of toilet paper.

We contribute to funds to help the needy.

Homeschooling tips from “professionals” abound.

Fitness businesses are hosting free on-line classes. One studio offered to leave clean yoga mats outside for anyone to borrow.

Grocery stores are reserving the first hour of the business day for seniors.

People are buying gift cards from local businesses just to help them with their cash flow.

We share jokes and memes and wait for the “Coronials” who will show up nine months from now.

We are paying our dog walkers and our house cleaners even though we will do the work ourselves for now.

Everyone remembers that we are all in this together.

When the dust settled after 9/11, we vowed to keep up with our new-found compassion. To keep remembering the little things. To be kind.

We wore our American Flag safety-pin brooches and checked in with each other.

Benevolence prevailed.

But then life got in the way.

It started slowly. Someone else took the parking spot at the mall that we had our eye on, and we honked.

Someone at the gym had all the TV stations turned to golf, and we complained.

We accidentally bump into someone on the street, and they let a little “asshole” slip out.

Whether it’s weeks or months from now, this virus crisis will pass.

And, try as we will, we will go back to that place of incivility. It’s just human nature.

I wish there was something we could do to prolong or avoid it, but we are smart enough and know too much to think that this will actually happen.

So let’s you and I do our personal part. Let’s continue to show as much kindness as we can for as long as we can.

After all, we are all in this together.