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Week 17 - Friday in Texas brings causes for high joy and deep sadness for Graeme

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Graeme - North Texas, U.S.


 

Howdy – today is the sixth anniversary of our family moving to Texas, from England. We will be celebrating the Texas way with a heaping helping of the best barbeque (smoked meats, sides and fixins to the uninitiated) in North Texas from the awesome pit crew at Panther City BBQ.

 

 We had a five-year plan when we moved – a list of things we thought were achievable which included a wish list column, too. We achieved a bunch of things in the plan including the wish list. We own a great house with a pool and plenty of garden space to live with two big dogs. Wish list items fulfilled.

 

 Some of the stuff we supposed to be easier – throw some money at it, follow processes and everything will fall into place = have proven to be immeasurably more difficult than planned. I am talking mainly about immigration. After years of lawyers, both scrupulous and un-, and tens of thousands of dollars we are permanent residents on track to become citizens if we choose. There’s a bunch of politics and one very shady lawyer behind why the whole damn thing was so tortuous. That is a conversation for a different time and place.

 

 Suffice to say that we have much to be thankful for as a result of our tenacity, hard work, and a little luck. So, today we eat all the meats, drink some Mexican beer and probably crack open the bottle of prosecco that has been inexplicably sitting un-drunk in our fridge for a few weeks.

 

Thursday this week was an anniversary of an altogether different flavor. It marked one year since my mom’s funeral. In late-July 2019 I made the third trip of that summer to England having twice crossed The Pond to visit my terminally ill mom. Though we all knew that she was dying mom was ‘supposed’ to ‘last’ till the spring of 2020.

 

Congressman John Lewis

 The metastatic cancer spread to her brain last summer and mom was given weeks to live. Two weeks later I got a late night call from dad telling me that mom was in hospital and had 24-hours to live. There was no way I could book and take the 10-hour flight and get to the hospital on time. I have made my peace with that. Grief, it turns out, is more difficult to reconcile; it is simply going to take a long time and that is okay. I watched the funeral of Congressman John Lewis on Thursday with no little displaced sadness, and a constant lump in my throat.

 

 Back in the today, and to broaden the context, Texas is still struggling with the numbers of infections. COVID-19 cases in the state are regularly around the 6,000 people mark every day. Across the United States that numbers swells to around 65,000 people every day. This week the richest nation on the planet has averaged one COVID-19 death every minute. You have likely heard or read of the massive surge in cases through Florida. Texas, Arizona and California – the Sunshine Belt – over the past few weeks. Those numbers have stabilized which means, in reality, they are not going up day on day. They are, however, not going down.


 To rub salt in the wound a report that the government sought to keep secret from the people it notionally serves was leaked this week; it shows that there up to a dozen states in the Midwest and Northern border areas of the U.S. that are showing signs of an emerging surge in infections.

 

 Put simply – some Americans are screwing this up and all Americans are suffering the consequences. Stay home as much as you can. Use the innovative curbside options for shopping, or get delivery. Most of all, when you come in contact with someone who does not live in your house wear a damn mask. If you are worried about your ‘Liberty’ you will find that the founding documents of this Republic put ‘Life’ first.

 

Stay safe and well. Be excellent to one another.

 

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