Give me slugs, give me aphids, give me earwigs to battle silently in my backyard. My backyard, where plants will still bloom despite pests and disease, where I can pull weeds and fertilize. My backyard where I can do something.
Don’t give me this helplessness, this knot in my stomach as I drop my children off at school, wondering if it’s the last time I see their backpacks disappear behind the front doors. Don’t give me a virus that has already silenced and divided so many. I don’t want my children to think this is normal.
The flowers in my garden are normal. The pests, the rising sun every day. Give me these and I will happily trudge on, happily wade through my own anxieties.
I don’t want the rest.
I will grow flowers and show that there is still beauty in the world. But even flowers wilt and die in the vase, even the strongest blooms disappear in winter.
We must do more, I think as I linger in my daughter’s bedroom after she falls asleep, grateful that even under the covers I see the slight rise and fall of her chest.