Here we are, a year into our pandemic new normal. And there my dear Mama is, a year of coronavirus-induced isolation in. Days checked off on the calendar in her pretty room at the adult family home. Maybe the one from The Nature Conservancy. Maybe the one from Alley Cat Allies. I wouldn’t know: I haven’t been inside her room since March 15, 2020. Even if Mom no longer can, Ella the Caregiver and I check off the dates from one vaccine-dose to the next, on our electronic calendars.
I’m meditating on calendars because the pigeons of all those donations we let fly last May came home to roost. As have the government’s latest stimulus checks, an investment in America’s financial well-being for at least another few months. So I again find myself in the unhappy position of opening a vast pile of donation requests dating back to November…
But the silver lining is being able to help once again the organizations that our family found important over the years.
A wider lens
Last year, because my mother was still able to enunciate her enthusiasms and wishes more clearly, I had firm direction on what she wanted me to do. This year, the direction is more ghostly: the strokes, the pandemic-driven isolation, have taken their toll. A nod, the occasional head-shake… but the more common response? A look that says, “I don’t know, for Pete’s sake, don’t you?”
So this year, I consult my heart and my memory as well as my mother’s checklist. As well as the family’s generous ghosts.
My father, Ron, a devoted railfan (we don’t call them ‘buffs’ in our part of the ecosystem), belonged to two organizations. When I say ‘belonged,’ I think I mean in the sense of blood-brothership: his fellow members of both sexes were like kin to him. I’ve written about his attachment to America’s chronically underfunded passenger rail system. This year, I’ll put some of Mom’s money where their mutual hearts beat together: the National Association of Rail Passengers and the National Rail Historical Society.
From Timothy’s list of Good Causes, National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood stood out. This post talks about a bit his particular interests. Suffice it to say that today I wrote a healthy check to PP, which ensured my reasonable good health for many years before I graduated to company-sponsored health insurance and a family doctor of my own. I also sent some funds to our beloved public radio stations, KNKX, WBGO Newark and KSDS San Diego.
And my own perspective
For my part, I think about how hungry people were through this hard, cold winter. I sent money again this year to Northwest Harvest. (If only I still had a veg patch. I’d put all the healthy produce produce there in a box at my local schools.)
If you have $5 to spare from your stimulus or tax refund, please consider sending some to those in need. Do you know of other organizations you would like to recognize and recommend? Suggest them in a comment below.
The quick and the dead will doubtless bless your generosity.
Banner photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels