How I wish you were here

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here

--Pink Floyd

By Bobby Neal Winters

I hear them say, I will be glad when this is over.

The year 2020 is about over.  This is something that has been looked forward to for many months now.  We’ve fantasized about the coming of the New Year as if the coming of 2021 would magically sweep all of our troubles away, as if it would sweep COVID away.  

But it hasn’t, and it won’t.

There are still lots of new cases.  There are still people dying.  It is still not over.

They do have a vaccine or two or three.  Those who want to get vaccinated will get vaccinated, me among them, and that is a good thing.

But if somebody could wave a magic wand and it were all over--if it were all wiped from our minds so that we were ignorant that those five letters could be put together in any meaningful way--it would still be something else.

Because that is the nature of life and living. 

There is always something going on somewhere.  There is always something happening.  There is always something we feel put upon because of.

Now it is COVID.

We’ve lost people to COVID this year. She has been capricious, our little COVID.  She has put me in mind of what Jesus said about the Coming of the Son of Man: “Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.”

There have been families where one was asymptomatic and the other has died. No rhyme, no reason; no trial, no jury. 

In this way, COVID is the perfect manifestation of our old enemy. You can do your best; you can wash your hands; you can wear your mask; you can avoid crowds and keep your distance.  It all helps. But there is no guarantee. 

I’m thinking about people I know who’ve died within the last few years, not of COVID. That eight track tape player in my head starts up with Pink Floyd: “How I wish, how I wish you were here.”

I lost Dad three decades ago;  I lost Mom ten years ago this coming New Year’s Day.  I’ve lost some of my dear cousins.  I’ve lost friends.  They are gone from me now everywhere but memory.

I would give anything for half an hour with any of them.

What I am trying to say is that I want to stop wishing things were over and to embrace the now.  I want to enjoy the people I have while I still have them.  The optimist says this is the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true; the realist knows that this is what we’ve got.  You’ve got to love each day as God’s gift.

I wish you all a joyous New Year.  

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. )