The Prime Minister takes off his mask and says, “Good evening, everyone. Listen, I’ll tell you right now, I don’t have good news for you. Unfortunately, over the past few days, we have seen an explosion in the number of cases… ”
Here we are again. Bye-bye dance, karaoke, party crowded offices, rooms and restaurants!
The PM continues: “The big question people ask themselves: what do we do with gatherings in houses? “Small resigned shoulder movement:” Unfortunately, we have to put a maximum of 10 people. ”
Oh ! It is not easy to pronounce, that sentence. She takes all her little change of humility. Only a few days ago, however, we were promised that we could celebrate at twenty in our homes. Now the table has just been reduced by half.
Before giving the floor to Minister Dubé, François Legault adds: “I know that people will say: ‘You have changed your mind.’ We are going to put pride aside … If there is one thing we have learned with this crisis, it is that we must be very humble because what we see today is maybe not what we see tomorrow or next week … ”
In a musical at the West Side Story, the PM, with his face of Jean Gabin, would have started singing:
Life, love, money, friends and roses
You never know the noise or the color of things
That’s all i know
But that, I know
If there’s one lesson we learned from this pandemic, it’s that you never know. How many times have we thought we got out of it, and how many times have we plunged back into it, right into it?
Should the government have waited before giving us false joys? Preferably. Especially with the Omicron variant on the horizon. But it was still December 7, there were only two weeks left to place our orders. He would have waited until we complained about it.
It’s always easier afterwards. Now what do we do with our varying morale? A few days ago, he was at the top of the tree, with the star, and now, he is at the back, in the thorns and the icicles. We were ready to go around the world. And today, we are touring our world to uninvite him.
To stabilize your mood, you have to learn to appreciate what you have. Ten people is worse than twenty, but better than nothing. And as we know that we don’t know what the next few days have in store for us, nothing, it may be not very far away. So, let’s take advantage of it while we can be a dozen.
There is a silver lining to everything. Even at the worst.
Remember, two years ago before, December 18th, we were all caught up in the holiday whirlpool. The gifts to buy. Receptions to be organized. Checklists. All out of breath. Overwhelmed. We were in the plus, plus, plusse! Always more! So much so that we wondered if we had not lost the meaning of Christmas. If we had forgotten the essential.
Then COVID-19 happened. The breaker of party. We found ourselves, overnight, in the less, less, less. Less activities. Less contact. Less travel. Powerful reality check.
No more big extravagances. A Christmas in complete privacy. With the inhabitants of his home. Uniquely. Not the other distant relatives. And suddenly, the essential that is usually invisible to us has gotten out of our eyes. Christmas is the time with our people. We say the holiday season, but it is the time of the beings.
It is always when we are deprived of someone that we realize how essential they are to us.
Last year grandparents were missing, grandchildren were missing, dear friends were missing. This year, we can add a few more. It’s already that.
What if the week is screwing up and the measurements have to be revised the hard way? We will do with it. We do not have a choice. Because all these efforts only serve one thing: to stay together. All this is so that hospitals can continue to treat and save souls. Better to stay together under the same sky than to contaminate each other under the same roof.
How long do we have for it? We do not know. What we do know is that it is up to us to find the right thing in every situation. Are you challenging me? Well, here is …
The Canadian won, with no world, Thursday, and he will not lose, tonight, with no match!