My Year in Masks

 

It's been a year - and I'm still wearing masks daily in order to ward off the COVID-19 virus.  As of today, the country's daily death toll has been over 4,000.  That's more deaths than happened on 9-11-2001 every single day. 

 In my mile and a half walk each morning I rarely encounter any mask wearing neighbors.  I don't question this.  I just wear my mask and listen to my stand up comics, especially Jim Gaffigan telling me how fat he is.

But positive mask experiences abound.  For Christmas, one of my families gave me the designer mask I'm wearing in this photo..  I love it but don't plan to attend any formal gatherings any time soon so thought I'd share it with you. 

Way back in the fall of 2020 an old acquaintance who's a current Facebook friend made 10 masks especially for me. Turns out she did this as a kind of ministry.   Last I'd heard she'd made over a thousand masks - at no charge. 

Over the months I've struggled with wearing my hearing aids, glasses, ear buds and mask.  Several times my $$$$ hearing aids went flying through the air as I finagled all the stuff over my ears.  I'd done the Internet search for hearing aid friendly masks but no luck. 

Then a close friend came by with a bag full of them!  I was overwhelmed with gratitude.  

Just before flying to Atlanta for Christmas my neighbor brought by two of the N-95 medical grade masks to wear on my trip.  Again, I was overwhelmed.  

Along with all the crazy, scary stuff that happens over and over every single day, there are also people rendering big and small kindnesses every single day.  And I want to be in that group as well.  It keeps me going.

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