“Where have all the Flowers Gone?”

Good Morning on this day when the only sun we get is in our back yard.

There is a literary term that has me thinking this morning: “Ubi Sunt” It is the Latin way of saying “Where are?” The classic example is French poet Francois Villon’s “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” It is all about looking back on the good old days.

I think we are all doing a lot of Ubi Sunt’ing lately. Where are days I could eat at a restaurant with friends? With summer coming, we remember the days of sunning on the beach or swimming at a pool and wonder when they will come again. We long for the days we could visit loved ones without the worry of contagion. We even miss the noise of a crowded store or a busy street.

We yearn for our friends at work and even for the frantic days where there was too much to do

and we miss the days we could to choose to laze around and do nothing.

And then there are the folks who are so precious to us right now: the doctors and nurses, the hospital workers and EMT’s, the workers in the grocery stores and the people who repair our necessary services. They long for days that they could sit with family for dinner or take a weekend to relax. They long for days when there was time for a short break and time to sit with co-workers for a few minutes over lunch. They put themselves in peril to keep our lives safer and worry about their families at home.

We all miss our normal lives. We wish and hope that stability will come back to our lives. We grieve for the days when newscasters had to find stories to fill the hour on a no-news day.

We all hope and pray that the “days of wine and roses” will come again. We cannot help but look back to the “good old days” but it is essential that we look forward. Whatever nature does to us, we must continue to do the best for ourselves and our loved ones. The world we love will not restore itself. It is up to us to build a world that is safer, more prepared and more caring than the one disrupted by this virus. Prepare for the worst, guard yourself and your loved ones but plan and dream of the time that we create our new world.