PART OF THE “THIS IS THE MOMENT” SERIES
April 2021
Upon beginning the second year of the pandemic:
I am moved by the kindness of science
Of
The biologists
The epidemiologists
The virologists
The evolutionary biologists
The structural chemists
care physicians and nurses
The reassigned medical and para-medical professionals—psychiatrists, speech therapists, and others
respiratory therapists who helped us to breathe
though many of us never found our breath again
occupational and physiotherapists
who helped our bodies remember how to move
and taught us to move differently in the aftermath
The aids, attendants and orderlies
Who keep everything moving in hospitals
From the supply rooms and the laundry
To the pharmacy and radiology
Delivering bags of I.V. solutions and medications
Those who accepted working extra shifts
Over and over
Treating us with compassion
The caregivers who spoke to us and for us
Saw past the ventilators
Saw the person in the comatose body
All those whose work is to help lighten the load
Taking on the responsibility of our suffering
Our fear
Our dependency
Our frailty
Our mortality
Resting their hopes on our resilience.
You will have saved us
You are science’s kindest face
You are passionate, committed, diligent
You collaborate across continents
Single-minded
You are hope
You are the biggest kind of Love.
Drawing by Chris Riddell, from the book by Michael Rosen, Many Different Kinds of Love
Postscript
The gaps between the pieces I write grow longer. It’s not that I have less to say but more about how all of the threads of our lives during the pandemic have become intertwined.
I feel entangled in my cancer and the other, savage illness caused by the COVID-19 virus, that has changed the world and most lives in ways we’ll only be fully aware of when this crisis is over.
2 thoughts on “THE KINDNESS OF SCIENCE”