Surely we should have seen them coming! But in 2020, the amply warned dangers, nevertheless, felt like storms from nowhere. With hindsight we can see our typical default, denial.
Consider how the dominoes for the COVID-19 pandemic were all perfectly arranged in lines and branches reaching all around the globe without one effective safeguard in place. But realistically, maybe there is no way to safeguard a completely interdependent world. All the paths for prosperity were ready channels for the pathogen.
Can we say it was unexpected? My dad had done everything but stand on his head to remain a paid pastor at Ashburn. So, his public protest and sabotage campaign against the pastor he had praised, and the church he cherished for a lifetime, when they necessarily moved him aside, pretty much looked like his one remaining option; standing on his head.
Then Gramps, my wife’s dad, had been in the hospital multiple times in the last year. If we had been listening, we would have heard him telling us goodbye over and over in so many ways. We weren’t listening and we weren’t ready to say goodbye. But it was time.
And the biggest storm of all was not really a surprise either. Our son Matthew’s dance with death had started almost a year earlier, including four overdoses. Very honestly, we failed to muster the energy to watch for another one. We were going to get him into rehab the next morning. That was all the time needed for his final deadly dose. Sure, we knew we were fighting for his life, but we couldn’t imagine he would die.
It seems that vigilantly denying so many likely dangers is part of being human and most of all, denying that which is ultimately inescapable, death! 🙈