FEAR OF POLIO… BACK THEN

I remember, as a child, being fearful of catching polio. My parents, along with their friends, whisked their families out to the “country” … the Catskill mountains… each summer, to escape, they believed, this terrible disease.

I guess it worked for most people. I didn’t know anyone back then, who contracted polio.

What I do remember was being inspired to make a difference. At ten years old, or so, along with my friends, I set out to raise money to help the cause. It was something to hang on… magical thinking, perhaps, or maybe… just a diversion away from fear.

We made tissue paper “carnations from Kleenex, embellished with lipstick edges and fresh leaves. Yes, there were trees growing in Brooklyn.

We sold our creations at the local subway station at Newkirk Ave. for twenty-five cents, and managed to raise about eighteen dollars give or take.

We were excited to donate it to the local polio charity office. With the money we included an embellished version of our flowers, fashioned into a corsage, donated by a local florist.

In this time of this current health crisis, I sometimes think about  “Nancy,”  a new bride, many years later, who was fearful of moving from New York to a small town in the mid-west, to accompany her husband who was off to medical school.

“How am I going to survive four years in THAT place?” she had said.

Prepare to grow where you re planted, Nancy, I had challenged.  This can be a new and exciting adventure for you and your husband… if you let it be.

Nancy needed an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, I had decided.

Now it’s my turn to live up to that standard … again.  After too many days of being “ship-wrecked” in my family room, I’m embarrassed about my lack of real understanding about the depth of Nancy’s angst at the time.

In these trying times, I am being tried for sure …  maybe like you.

I miss life as we’ve known it. I miss seeing … and hugging… the people I love. I miss going shopping, visiting with friends, going out for meals, my Zumba class. I’m working remotely like everyone else … but I miss the face to face time I spend with clients. I have a renewed appreciation of the simple things.

“Grow where you’re planted?”

“Make lemonade when you are given lemons? “

Feels like empty platitudes… with so many people losing their lives and/or their way of life.

SO, WHAT HAVE I DONE TO COPE?

So far today, I’ve taken an exercise class on-line, finished two crossword puzzles, walked on the treadmill … connected with my grandson who agreed to be my personal trainer (remotely) and have taken a shower.

It’s only 12 noon.

I’m  about to make a bunch of phone calls to reach out and “touch” others as much as I can and to encourage others to do the same.

It makes me feel better… kind of like making and selling those flowers so long ago.

Where will you be when this crisis is over? Where will I be? What can we do with this new kind of time and experience?

(AND …ABOUT NANCY: She did just fine. Going off to support a handsome husband turned out not to be so bad after all. Six months after leaving New York, she called me to report that she was “so grateful to have my eyes opened to the big world out there and the challenge of change.”)