A Mask Says I Love You

Have you heard that little story about the difference between heaven and hell? Both have banquet tables lined with hungry eaters. All the utensils, however are much longer than a person's arm. In hell, each starving person, frustrated, tries to feed himself with his own fork and cannot. In heaven, the eaters enjoy the meal because each one feeds his neighbor across the table, and all are fed.

I admit it's taken me a while to understand face masks during the Covid-19 outbreak. We in the U.S. don't wear masks. Only doctors wear masks. I kept hearing that homemade masks don't protect you from the virus. So why wear them?

Now we know that a homemade mask isn't supposed to protect the wearer. A mask protects everybody else from the wearer -- if you wear a mask, you're not caring for your own health; you're caring for the health of others.

In Asia, this is understood. Each citizen must care for his neighbor, and thus all are cared for -- like the eaters at the banquet. Sadly, this not a concept Americans are familiar with! We have a long history of expecting each person to care for him/herself. We expect a person to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. We have a very loose definition of society and are suspicious of anybody telling us what to do. We want to determine our own risks for ourselves and our family. I really think it doesn't make sense to the American mind that I should entrust myself to you and you should entrust yourself to me, and we would BOTH be safer that way.

So masks are a hard sell here. Wear a mask because you love the stranger you pass in the store, because you cannot be sure you are not sick. In this way, homemade masks are quite effective. They greatly reduce the droplets coming out of the wearer's mouth.

Adam had a very blood-shot, swollen eye, and then a very painful throat, and then white in his throat. This was Thursday. He went to the rural clinic 2 minutes from our house. They tested him for strep, but it was negative. So ... quick as you like ... they gave him a Covid-19 test. We await the results. Friday was a very rough day.

However, it seems clear that he has a horrific sinus infection and nothing more, just as I did last week. Antibiotics are helping greatly. Still, he can't leave the house until the test result is given to us. My husband's having a sudden Covid-19 test truly brought the virus outbreak home to me in a new way. We were quite worried at first. He felt very ill. All the other worries of life were wisped away for about 24 hours.

Fellow American, if you haven't already, retool your brain regarding public health. Each of us must become our brother's keeper. Each of us must start thinking of others instead of only self. It is the only way to keep our nation from falling into a sort of isolating hell of selfishness.

If you want a huge dose of encouragement, go to Facebook and ask to join the group "RVs for MDs to fight the coronavirus." I cry when I read the posts there -- ordinary people volunteering the use of their beautiful RVs to doctors and nurses in various desperate situations, all from good will, for free. Those are some very long spoons and forks, loving others across the banquet table.

(And last - a very short video about mask-making)