Home Stay has been a long time coming

For a home buddy, to stay home for many hours is not a problem. His daily chores are the same, his movements have not changed and his regiment is at full course.

How about those individuals whose lives revolve around outside of his or her domain; their social circle evolves to a much wider parameter: lunch meeting here, dinner meeting there, and in between happy hour in a nearby brewpub. And in the weekend, the out-of-towners have to pack up and rush to the cottage on the lake; or to some fishing and boating tournament; and for those golf nuts, the lure of the 18-hole course is so strong.

What a happy life to be more an outdoor person: vast track of hiking path, wide-open park, raging rivers and more than 100,000 lakes.

And their houses, their abodes, their nests are just a place to a quick eats; or just a place to spend the night with the family.

The year 2020 came so gently and everyone had many plans: travelling, gardening, playing favourite sports; and other plans which would give them a chance to get out from their houses.

But the wind had changed a direction, so abrupt, so unnerving, so instant: Coronavirus or to the medical term: COVID-19 has become a hanging sword of Damocles! COVID-19, a tiny microbe, is contagious and deadly.

While COVID-19 has been ravaging people in China and other countries, there had been laissez-faire among the Americans, the Canadians and some other countries. But reality had sunk: many are infected by the virus and the number of deaths was already in three digits. The World Health Organization (WHO) alarmed the whole world of the epidemic.

Others countries became the battleground between life and death. Many countries have been affected by the virus!

Now it had become a pandemic, all over the world and many country’s presidents had reacted with vengeance to fight the virus while other leaders had become complacent and considered the spreading virus is a blown affair, a hoax, a biological warfare, initiated by one country.

Under the background of thousands of affected persons and the increasing numbers of deaths, everyone woke up with a changing life: so fast that the majority are not prepared to alter their lifestyle.

Armed with harrowing infected and death statistics, and led by the leading medical officers, drastic measures were instituted to SAVE LIVES!

Came the new jargons: “social distancing,” and the most dreaded, the strict imposition of ” Stay Home” to save your lives and others’ ! The barrage of actions has been instituted: No crowd with more than 50; then, minimize a crowd to 10. And let someone in the house designate one person to do the shopping of the necessary things needed by the family.

Yes, “Stay Home” to be safe, and to save others. And in print and in the broadcast: “Stay Home.”

Cities and towns are like ghosts, like the narrative of a popular television show: “After People,” an eerie series showing what happened to the buildings, the parks, the town centre: all were considered the silent remnants of the civilization when people were wiped out by the certain catastrophic event.

We are at home with our family, with our loved ones. COVID-19 is a catalyst for change, a change agent to rethink over the way we live; a force to awaken us the value of the human relationship, and moreover, the value of a family.

An unknown writer posits: “No amount of money or success can take place of time spent with your family.”

Bard Henry reminds us: “Families are the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach our heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.”

And with this life-threatening COVID-19, Joseph Campbell clears the air: “Opportunities find deeper powers within ourselves when life seems most challenging.”