By M. Grace Grzanek
Grandma Katarzyna had eight children. Four of her little ones, one in infancy, one a day after birth, died in the last pandemic, the Spanish influenza virus of 1918, 102 years ago. Mom survived. She was but five years old at the time. But she carried the residue of that pandemic’s virus throughout her lifetime, constantly struggling with heart and/or liver issues. Uncle Charlie survived, but barely. He was four when the pandemic hit, and he made it just to his 13th birthday. Recovery from these kinds of virulent viruses is problematic, never assured.
In 1918, there was no television, no internet, no zooming or facetime, and, in the homes of the poor of the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago, there was no radio. What good might it have done anyway? Many of these Packingtown residents, just like so many of our own neighbors here in the Fox Valley today, were refugees and immigrants, and could not speak or understand English. How were they to know what to do to protect themselves and each other?
It troubles me, therefore, when I watch the teenagers in my town hanging out in forbidden groups as if none of this current CO-VID pandemic is any of their concern. It troubles me even more as I wonder: Where are their parents? Why are these children not supervised?
It troubles me when family and friends I love are putting their own lives on the line right now to assist and tend to the sick, the dying, and the vulnerable among us, while some petty and selfish so-called adults are responding to this current CO-VID crisis just like spoiled brats who want what they want, no matter who else gets hurt in the process. They can’t see beyond their own selfishness. So like teenagers. So like two-year olds.
It troubles me when I listen to so-called grown-up individuals insisting on and forming protest groups to declare that their governor is violating their individual rights by proclaiming a lockdown. These poor persons want to go back to work and get on with life. Well, so do the rest of us. But there is such a thing as the common good.
It troubles me still more when I hear a president, short on common sense and certainly short on wisdom, insist that we will open the economy tomorrow, because, after all, making a profit is, he thinks, the most important value of this great America, no matter who dies or is permanently maimed in the process.
I am now 85 years old and tend carefully to my well being. I still have the potential of a long life and much productivity ahead of me.
My family has, for 102 years, carried enough pandemic virus burden. So have many other families, including the families ·of the mayor of Aurora and the chief of police of Aurora, and other persons whose names will, just like my family’s, never make the national, or even the local news.
Let’s grow up, folks. No man, or woman, or teenager, is an island unto themselves, whether in the United States, or anyplace else. We are all vulnerable. We are dependent upon one another. Likewise, we are all responsible for one another. It’s called society. It’s the common good, not each individual’s good, that creates a strong society. Governor JB Pritzker has underscored, we’re all in.
M. Grace Grzanek lives in Batavia.