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[This is an email I sent to our nephews Mother's Day; it ends with a hard question all of us might want to consider asking ourselves in this epidemic.]

'W. and I went to put flowers on Grandma's grave; while she was arranging the flowers and chatting with her mom's spirit, I did my favorite thing in a cemetery and walked around trying to get a glimpse of the lives the dead once lived. Funny thing is, at least 2/3 of them didn't love as long as I have. [I have read that 1/3 of the population never makes it to 65!]

Now the sad news: your aunt and I are slowly dying--of boredom! Who knew house arrest would be so hard? On you guys too--no partying! But one good thing is that maybe now we fat and happy Americans will stop taking things for granted, like health, prosperity, life! Death is always at your shoulder from the day you're born.We've tried to sanitize it, but death has had enough and now shouts from the rooftops, "No freakin' way, you puny humans! I can kill you with a handshake or a sneeze, and you'll never see it coming!"

Of course, in our modern secular hubris, we're sure we'll get one up: a vaccine, perhaps a medical miracle treatment like antibiotics seemed 80 years ago. But this bug might just be a precursor to something even worse, like a variant on Ebola or the bubonic plague that killed up to 1/2 of humanity in the 14th century (and is still around, folks!). From then till the Spanish Flu of 1918 [which killed my great-uncle and great-aunt], the world was raked by epidemics every 5-6 years. People died, sometime like flies. Curiously, the strange thing is that in those more lethal times, people were generally more religious, i.e., open to at least the chance something of them would survive the death of their bodies.

How true is that nowadays, even amongst some who call themselves religious? Let me contrast 2 communities subject to a deadly disease. In 1665 the English village of Eyam had an outbreak of plague. Many wanted to flee, though they knew this would spread the disease. The pastor of the parish church convinced the village to quarantine-- for a year!--thereby sparing the nearby villages. About 2/3 of the 300 villagers died in that time. Contrast that with Martha's Vineyard where the locals, fearing a far less lethal disease, Covid-19, wanted to keep off the island the New Yorkers fleeing to their summer homes, properties the New Yorkers owned.

Which village would you be in? Fess up--it's good for the soul!
love,
old uncle'
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