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Found myself surprisingly emotional about my parents both having gotten their vaccine shots. (Fully acknowledging how fortunate we are, and the pain of so many for whom this all comes too late.) I'm grateful. Hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath for a year.
It's especially poignant because this isn't the first deadly global pandemic that my father has lived through. During the (colonialist-inflicted) famine when he was a child, both polio and smallpox ravaged our family's village; he barely survived. Four of his siblings did not.
I feel like this time, he's on the lucky side of the coin toss. Last time he wasn't. Such basic saving graces depend entirely on the whims of geography or how your identity fits within the arbitrary inequities of the system around you. It doesn't have to be this unfair.
I'm grateful to all the countless people who do the thankless work to take care of us all. I wish we did right by you like you do in caring for those we love the most.
