Humanity is too precious to play around with

Aug 28, 2020 by M. Marmer Verhoeff

Life circumstances have consumed the last 3 years of my personal life. I was totally uber-focused on my own world. I had truly needed to close shop on writing and other vanities, and give all my time to those personal matters. The first draft of my third novel was almost completed in 2017 when it all went to pot. I got the terrible news of a cancer diagnosis for my mother. This was horrible on so many counts because of the other issues which were consuming my time and life situation as well. Icing on a cake I didn’t want. I made a point to finish my third novel and then, I put the manuscript aside.

I am one of the fortunate few who get to say I had wonderful parents. Being with them was a unique pleasure. And the fact that my father passed from cancer and now, my mother would deal with it, was like the cartoon boxing glove that comes from the side and slams you right in the jaw. You don’t expect it and you’re shocked by it. I was determined to give my mother as much of my time as possible.

My mother’s needs and treatments became front and center in my life. Every other event during the time she was with us had to be carefully woven into the fabric of our routines. Some of which were very difficult to maneuver. It is not easy to manipulate wheelchairs and walkers or handle intricate requirements of the bathroom. When I was a nurse it was different. I had concern for my patients, certainly lots of empathy but the wall of objectivity could still stand strong. When it is your parent that you love, life becomes very subjective and even the best of nurses can feel like they are not functioning like a nurse would in those circumstances. You are making life and death decisions but this time around, it is for your mother, the woman who nurtured your entire being.

My mother passed away in early 2019. It took a lot of time to accept that I was now an orphan, that I had no choice in the matter. In fact, I find that with each passing day, I miss my parents more. I know however, that both parents would want me to get back in the writing saddle once and for all. And since I knew that by the summer of 2019, and since it had been so long, I knew it was wisest to read and edit the draft of novel number 3 all over again.

When I finished the task, it was already the end of 2019 so I opted to wait until after the new year to begin the publishing process. Unfortunately, that is when Covid-19 started to show itself. And amid all of early 2020 is when it was clear of what was happening around the planet. The pandemic was on an all consuming warpath. Life shut down. Here we are now, heading quickly into the Fall of 2020 and things are just starting to open up but only after hundreds of thousands of deaths with more to come.

If we are all lucky, life can return to normal and with no fear of a second wave when the season changes. However, we have no way of knowing what lies ahead. I do hope to have the book out at the end of the year. Sadly, I have to leave that notion open ended and finish with, you never know.

And before I close, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the other vicious pandemic raging through society as I type … racism. What are we doing to our world? Isn’t a deadly virus enough to make us rethink things? I pray I will see an end to racism in my lifetime but it is hard to be hopeful about that. I suppose that as a nurse, the best way to sum up my feelings is through biological fact. Cut me open, cut open an African American, Latino American, Asian American, Indigenous American and guess what? We will all bleed red blood. We will all have the same exact organs inside. All the way down to our cells, we will all have the human imprint in our DNA.

The only differences will be that some will have more skin pigment than others, some will have a different eye shape or color. Well, that is no different than saying she has long hair and I don’t. People who are prejudiced against their fellow man for simply being who they are, have absolutely no logical argument about their prejudice. And those who say that people of color are less than human, well, go back to the biology logic I just mentioned. I’ll even go as far to say that the argument of color is preposterous. It’s not even a black or white thing. None of us are those colors. Back to biology once more. We are all different shades on the pigment spectrum, from the deepest, darkest brown to the palest, lightest beige.

My heart is sad that there are people who have chosen to create the stark differences between us, and worse, perpetuate the fear and intolerance that is the result. Certainly sad that they consciously choose hating over loving. It’s bad enough we have a virus that is killing so many of us. How truly sad that there is the virus of racism killing us as well. When will people finally accept that we have only cultural differences and that is of our own doing? Perpetuate change my fellow readers. Perpetuate the human-ness of us all … amen!