Editorial: Coronavirus can’t stop holidays and normal life
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Let’s face it: It’s hard to pretend that anything is normal right now.
If this were normal, kids would be playing Little League baseball and high school girls would be trying on prom gowns. People would be enjoying the mild spring weather by shopping for plants for the yard.
And we would be looking forward to those religious rites of spring. Jewish homes would be preparing for Passover to begin Wednesday with traditional Seder celebrations. Lilies would abound in churches getting ready for Easter. Community egg hunts would be scheduled and chocolate bunnies would be flying off the shelves.
Instead, everyone is behind closed doors. With the coronavirus lockdown, we aren’t shopping or working or worshipping with the casual ease we normally do.
But we have to try.
The pandemic is stealing from us all every day. It’s easy to chart the way it affects the stock market or your checkbook. It’s harder to quantify the little losses — the spontaneous little freedoms we took for granted.
Which is why we need them. We can’t let go of the things that make life worth living. We need popcorn with a Friday night movie. We need a Sunday afternoon walk (at a safe distance). And we need holidays.
We have to find ways to make the special moments happen even when we are locked six feet away from others, behind doors and Plexiglas and face masks.
Participate in a paper Easter egg hunt like the one in Edgewood, where neighbors out for a walk can spy colored eggs taped in windows. Worship with the online Holy Week activities planned by both Pittsburgh and Greensburg dioceses. Fill baskets with candy bought online from local chocolatiers. Have virtual Seders with family and friends eating brisket and matzoh ball soup in their own homes.
It will help our mental state. It will help our kids cope. It will even help our jobs and our economy if we can find ways to carry on.
None of this is normal. That makes the little pieces of normal we can find every day and on special days all the more important to seek out and save.