Freedom and Appreciation 08 April

Well finally, my 14 day isolation is finished. So I was able to go grocery shopping, go to the bank and then to the post office and then straight back home. Wow, that was exciting! Downtown, other than the occasional shopper looked like a ghost town compared to what it usually looks like, although I have to admit - there were more people uptown than I expected. It's strange what you take for granted when you lose it. The old saying, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" really rings true.

If you have a family to isolate at home with count yourself lucky. Like many others, I'm by myself. My step mom is the same, and she doesn't have Facebook to distract her during the day like I do. I was excited today because when I was doing my bank/grocery/post office run downtown my partner Shauna called me and said she was on her way back to work from lunch. We live on opposite sides of town and therefore shouldn't be visiting each other in each others homes. So I drove over to her work so we could say Hi face to face as she was walking from her car to work. (The last time I hugged her was two weeks ago.) We had no contact today only a smile, a laugh and a few words. Had this virus not struck when it did, we might have been taking her dog; Bear for a walk up Arrow Mountain trail or heading out to Lockharts Beach to collect stones off the beach. Instead, like everybody else we're sacrificing what we would like to be doing for the sake of the greater good. It doesn't make us heros, it makes us responsible. We are all responsible for our fellow humans. If anything good comes out of this tragedy it has to be that we learn to care about each other and for each other. We might have different beliefs, different cultures, different backgrounds, different coloured skin, different language but damn it were all in the same race ..... THE HUMAN RACE. Let's make that our lesson from this tragedy ... to my fellow humans I say stay safe, physical distance and wash your hands.

One last thing. I'm going to make a more conscious effort in the future about buying made in Canada products. ... I'm just saying ...