Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A Band of Brothers and Sisters

We are all burned out on the topic of Coronavirus, and truly, none of us would keep our sanity if we lived coronavirus 24/7.

Except, there are people who do live coronavirus 24/7, so people like me can stay home.  It's humbling, to say the least.

As I blogged about on Sunday, I've disagreed with some of what our our Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has proposed over the years.  However, I've been inspired by his daily COVID-19 press conferences. 

Last week, I listened as Cuomo talked to the Army Corp of Engineers gathered at New York City to do battle against COVID-19 and I wrote this down as he spoke:  "This is going to be a long day, an ugly day, a sad day...this enemy attacks the weakness of us. It attacks our most vulnerable...these are our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles."

Cuomo continued: "You are living a moment of history.  This is one of the moments of history they will write about in history..a moment that forges character, forges people, changes people, makes them stronger...10 years from now you'll be talking about today to your children or grandchildren and you will shed a tear, because you will remember...the faces, and the names [of those who died], and how hard we worked...and you should...but you will also be proud of what you did.  You will be proud that you showed up....now go out and kick coronavirus' ass."

I am not an avid reader of Shakespeare but those who are were immediately reminded of a speech given by Henry V of England before he and his men went into battle during the 100 Years War against the French at Agincourt.  It is called the "St Crispin's Day Speech" because it was given on the eve of St. Crispin's Day, 1415.  The English, greatly outnumbered, are camped, knowing they would go into battle the next day.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers", King Henry V (back in the day when kings and emperors went to war with their troops) exhorts his troops. He reminds them that, one day in the future, others will wish they had been at the front lines of the battle.

Now it's time for us to forget blue and red and remember the red, white, and blue, to paraphrase another Cuomo press conference speech.  It is time to become a Band of Brothers and Sisters and put our differences aside.
Lourdes Hospital, Binghamton, New York, March 29, 2020
This, fellow brothers and sisters, is part of the front line of the battle. We don't see the inside of these buildings but we see this.  Near every ER where I live in New York, we see the triage tents.

Waiting....

Tomorrow starts the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  26 days, 26 letters of the alphabet, starting with "A" on April 1.  I invite you to join me for my theme "America the Beautiful". It may be more a local theme than I had originally envisioned. But I hope the beauty of art, flowers, and sunsets will inspire you as you join the world against the foe we all are fighting, each in our own way.

(And, by the way....the English won the battle.)

7 comments:

  1. Triage tents have been set up in the East Meadow of Central Park. I could never have imagined ...

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  2. I started to like his daily briefings, however, with that said, I have grown tired of them. I am all for recognizing those on the front lines etc. I don't know if you caught the message the other day about hard changes coming to NY in means of more taxes and very serious cuts as the budget has to be passed by April 1. Listen, I think it is all safe to say, we are all growing weary and the unknown is quite fearful at this point. I know hard decisions will have to be made etc. Keep praying my friend.

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  3. Although I completely agree that it's time to stop thinking in a partisan manner, it's hard to do when you see the opposite from the White House. Daily. It would be really great if we could see compassion and unity and action from our government. It's much harder to have hope without it.

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  4. I love Andrew Cuomo. Not only is he doing a fabulous job, he doesn't constantly tell us so. He is a true leader. Partisan or not, Trump is an idiot. Had he acted when he first heard of the upcoming Pandemic, rather than calling it a "Hoax" and a "Democratic plan to make him look bad," we wouldn't be topping world statistics on cases. And now, he's accusing hospital staff in NYC of stealing masks! Really? Every criticism Trump gets is well deserved!

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  5. Maybe he will be come president...FDR was governor of NY and let our country though one worst economic times

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  6. You do know that Shakespeare wrote many of his plays and poems while the plague raged on.

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