Whenever I mention the rain in Los Angeles to someone who doesn’t live in California, they immediately tell me that it never rains here. We never have real rain. Once I moved to Texas and experienced my first Texas storm, I began to agree with those Google meteorologists. I didn’t know rain, thunder and storming until I lived in San Antonio. It begins as a normal day when suddenly the thunder cracks, the flash lights up the sky and the clouds come rolling in. It’s dark within seconds and an ominous feeling covers you like a heavy shroud draping your shoulders. The rain sweeps in and washes everything away. The pour is relentless, taking everything that isn’t anchored to something or someone. And as suddenly as it started, it stops. The sun is out, a rainbow graces the sky and it is as if nothing had ever happened.
This year has been a Texas storm. The weight of the pandemic and keeping everyone in your sphere safe from the invisible boogie man the can change that absolute trajectory of one’s life. The grief of the need for a continuous social justice movement. The despair of losing our heroes. The numbing of watching the numbers of deaths climb. The isolation. The financial crashes. The separation of families.
Thunder. Lightening. Rain.
The child has not been okay. I have not been okay. None of us are okay. None of this is okay. And although we voted to change our circumstances, it will still be a long time before we see those manifest. So we stand in fear. Frozen in fear. Fear of loss, rejection, illness, and change. I have been paralyzed by the sadness of it all. All I could do was try and focus on what I could change and improve, and ignore the things I could not. That has worked…most of the time. But sometimes that sadness, anger, fear, and frustration hit me in a wave.
Thunder. Lightening. Rain.
This year has shown me so much about people. It’s made me rethink some of the things patients need and the needs of Black and Brown Americans. It breaks my heart that people can and do choose to move in the direction that would help to heal the patient and embrace the Black and Brown person. I am waiting for the waters to clear out the junk, mismanagement, racism, doubt and misfortune. But the waters only seem to be rising. I wonder what it will take to make them recede.
