From age 55 onwards, I have always looked at each additional birthday as a bonus.
This year’s bonus was the most unique. I did not travel as I usually would. I broke bread with nobody. I was unable to do my usual birthday project. The most painful, I was not able to go to church although I was able to hear mass online.
Those of us who lived through this pandemic are bound to never forget our experiences, our misadventures, the challenges, and difficulties. And those of us who celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and other memorable days might consider this a peak experience. Unfortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel is a flicker of optimism, but from a distance, not yet a beacon of hope.
Those of us who lived through this pandemic, made more difficult by natural calamities, had a double whammy. Areas repeatedly hit by several storms on top of a volcanic eruption over just a short period of respite, have, instead of that flicker of optimism, an emergency flare fluttering in the distance – one that hissed and shone for a very brief period and then died.
We have all had lessons. Or at least one lesson. Mine is: should we ever decide to throw all our problems and worries in a communal heap and see for ourselves how lucky we still are, seeing how others miserably fared, we would grab our piles back, swiftly.
Hence, I have never complained. I still have more to be thankful for.
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