~and that's the truth~

My mother has been gone now for nearly 13 years and as I approach the age of 65 in the fall, I find myself wishing that I would have paid more attention to the stories that she told me of life long ago.  You know how it is in the days of our youth, most of that which is told to us just never really seems to sink in.  I remember a good deal of it, but oh how I wish she were here today to just tell me a few things one more time.

One thing I do remember and will always hold close to my heart, especially now in the days of the pandemic, was the story of a fragile and small piece of material that she showed me one day.  For many years my mom had kept the little white bundle folded up neatly in her dresser drawer.  Now she was handing it to me for safe keeping.   

It looked like a handkerchief and one that was quite worn out to boot.  Mom explained to me that it was the face covering that her mother had made to shield my mom's little face when she was just a baby.  She told me that my grandmother never took her out and away from the safe confines of their home in the sand hills of Harvey County, Kansas without covering her newborn baby's face with what appeared to be a quite breathable piece of cloth. 

The reason for that was very simple.
It was because of the Spanish Flu.

Mom was born at the tail end of the time of that horrible virus, one that gave birth to a pandemic that caused the deaths of around 675,000 Americans and countless more worldwide.  I can only imagine how cautious and worried my grandparents must have been and undoubtedly they did their best to protect their newborn baby and her two older sisters.  My grandfather's sister, my Great-Aunt Mary, had succumbed to the virus only a year and a half earlier.  To the Brown family, the Spanish flu was a very real thing and certainly something that no one took lightly.

Especially Andrew and Catherine Brown.

We are now living in a time when the subject of face coverings is front and center in our news.  Some folks wear them without much prompting while others adamantly refuse to put one on.  Legions of seamstresses sat down at their machines to make homemade cloth ones by the thousands in the early stages of the current pandemic and still do today.  Others bought up all the masks that they could in the beginning and created shortages that were evident early on.  There were those who got creative and fashioned their own kinds of masks out of t-shirts and bandanas.  As it is said, 

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

I have been writing a blog now since 2010 and of the hundreds and hundreds of posts that I have made, I cannot remember a time when I spoke of something controversial.  It was my choice to do so, but today I am going to make the exception.  I want to talk about face coverings, about masks and the need for all of us to consider wearing one in order to expedite the departure of the current virus.

I am just one person out of millions who live in this great country of ours but I am one.  When you see me and I am wearing a mask please understand this.  I want to protect you and keep you safe.  I don't want to make you ill if I am an asymptomatic carrier of the virus that is going around the entire world right now.  If the mask can somehow in some small way protect me from anyone else's ability to make me sick, then I am all for it.  I tell you this for one reason.

I want to live and I'd like for you all to live as well.

I realize that there will be those who read this and disagree.  If so, that is your perfect right to do so.  You will always be my friend even if we have differing opinions.   I am wise enough to know that there is nothing I can do to change your mind.  But if you have been on the proverbial fence with this one, please take my words to heart.  We all have to do something, even if it is such a small act as wearing a mask, to help rid the world of Covid 19.  I like to think of mask wearing as "an act of human kindness".

It has nothing to do with politics.
It has everything to do with coming out on the "winning side" of life in the end.
I love you guys all and I sure want you to be around for many years to come.
And that's the truth.

This picture was the very last one I took in my 5th grade classroom at Liberty Elementary School in Ponca City, Oklahoma.  Teachers were allowed into the building a few at a time in order to close out their rooms for the year.  We all wore masks, a requirement to walk back inside, and did our best to get things taken care of in an expeditious manner.  This photo will forever be a poignant reminder of what the school year looked like in 2020.