Numbers and daisies

Found it when I read up on Spanish flu. It's amazing, isn't it? --still an awful joke in my book, worthy of a firing. Chances are, whoever ran the Maurice (IA) paper in 1918 owned it, so no one lost his job. But the analogy to a hanging is in wretchedly poor taste, or so it seemed to me a couple of months ago when I found this oddly unfeeling bit of local reportage. 

Remembering the whole Spanish flu story is certainly not foolish, but it is painful. When first the new strain appeared, it was no killer. Those who got it, got over it quite quickly--maybe three days of misery and you're back on the streets--or on the battle lines of a war. 

But when it returned in a "second wave," it came heavily armed, because by fall it had morphed into something deadly that attacked the human system as if lit by hate. 

It power was made boundless by war, by army camps where hundreds, even thousands of men, ate, slept, and then suffered together. When the dough boys left, they carried the virus along wherever in the world they were sent. In November, 1918, government officials hesitated warning the general public because everyone wanted a place out in the street in celebration of a big American victory. We'd joined the war effort late, but made the difference, making America great, maybe for the first time.

Estimates vary from 17 to 100 million people died from the Spanish Flu's first and second waves, although numbers are and will always be difficult to ascertain, given the way public health operated in 1918. In the U. S., researchers claim the death toll was in the region of 657,000, enough at least to lower life expectancy in the U.S. by ten years.

We've now been under Covid-19's siege for five months. To me, at least, the bad joke about a lynching is still reprehensible, but it feels somehow less offensive than it when I found it because now I know that it's somewhat easy not to be personally affected. 

Here's this morning's bad news: 

According to the latest figures published by John Hopkins University, 10,704,228 cases have been detected worldwide, with 516,552 deaths and 5,489,399 people recovered.In the USA, there have been 2,686,587 confirmed cases and 128,062 deaths, with 729,994 people recovered from the virus.

Although NBC has shown me body bags and refrigerated trucks lined up to carry off the dead to mass graves, although I've heard medical professionals talk about the horror they've witnessed, watched them weep in countless interview, I know only two people who've suffered, no one who has died.  

Here's this morning's stats for Sioux County:

No death. None. Yet.

If you're retired, as we are, life hasn't changed a whole lot. Our children are all employed--as are those grandchildren old enough to have a job. School was tough, and chances are, it will be again. But right here, right now, the corn is six-foot tall, the weather steamy but non-threatening, and the flowers out back of place could not look any more beautiful.

I wouldn't make the joke, but I can understand how the guy could have been glib. 

Empathy comes a good deal easier for some than others. I have to work at it. 

Some of us are blessed with porous souls; some say "Beware of dog." Empathy is a kindness, not an instinct. It's a gift that requires nuture. It's not russian thistle or some robust stand of giant ragweed; it's a stand of daisies that'll grow into bounty if you just give them room.