Doing the Best We Can
A man at Tater Food and Fuel in Richton, Mississippi, pulled a full bag of trash from a garbage can graffitied with a dazed face and the year "2020.”
The full moon was rising, and the spurs on his boots clink, clink, clinked as he walked from pump to pump, dragging leaking bags and throwing them in the back of his Chevy Silverado.
A few miles away, "you deserve to be here" was spray-painted on three sides of a trailer close to the highway.
My family went on to Yazoo City for a quick outside-only visit with my parents. We stood apart in their driveway, eating Christmas lunches from to-go boxes on the hoods of our cars.
"I hate having Christmas like this,” my dad said, “but I guess this is the best we can do for now."
2020 may not have been the year we deserved, but it was a year of doing the best we can with what we had.
The Coronavirus started in a market in Wuhan, China, just over a year ago and quickly spread around the globe. March brought masks, ventilators, personal protective equipment and strained health care systems. There were orders for curfews, safer at home and 6 feet apart.
The unessential businesses and services were closed, including restaurants, bars, gyms, salons, beaches, parks and piers. Churches, schools and work went virtual, and Dauphin Street in Mobile went silent.
Fundraisers, proms and festivals were canceled during a spring when each day was the perfect weather for being together outside.
The shutdown hurt. People lost jobs and homes. Some moved in with family members or into their cars. The lines at food pantries got longer, and organizers adjusted to the biggest numbers they had ever seen. Many were new clients needing help for the first time.
It isn’t over. During these last days of December, we are ordering king cakes and replacing Christmas ornaments and wreaths with Mardi Gras masks and beads. However, canceled balls and parades mean a quiet carnival season as COVID deaths, infections and hospitalizations hit record highs.
But the worst of times brings out the best in people.
Volunteers formed sewing clubs and made masks for those on the front line. Churches and neighborhoods started community share tables. People gathered in hospital parking lots to pray for the medical staff, honking horns and flashing headlights in appreciation.
Teachers caravanned through neighborhoods around their schools with signs that read: "We miss you," "We love you," "Be creative" and "Read."
Restaurants gave out free meals. Volunteers gave out blessing bags and period packs. Groups formed to feed the vulnerable and homeless.
Lisa Denham left 90 free sack lunches on her porch every day.
At The Food Pantry at Central Church of Mobile, volunteers sang the theme song from “The Love Boat” while pushing carts in line. A man looked through his box of food and said, "Thank you, Jesus, they did me good. Chicken, broccoli, fish and greens. Ooh, I am going to fry my fish when I get home."
The American Lunch Truck, a nonprofit free-lunch program sponsored by the owner of Chuck's Fish as well as FIVE, parked at Cathedral Square, serving free lunches of chicken salad sandwiches and a Mediterranean salad with grilled chicken. The truck served free lunches in Mobile five days a week.
"This is our purpose and why we are here," manager Ben Loggins said. "We have never been needed more, and we are going into hyperdrive. We have less to do in the restaurants right now, and we are spending more time with American Lunch. That is a lot more important than making money."
Emily Pharez, PE Coach at J.L. Newton school in Fairhope, hopped in a bunny suit outside of assisted living homes on Easter weekend. Singing, dancing and shaking her bunny tail, she made lonely, quarantined residents smile.
With the elderly at the highest risk for COVID-19, visits to nursing homes were restricted to friends and family members sitting outside windows and talking by telephone. No hugs. No holding hands.
As Pharez blew bubbles and kisses, residents touched their fingertips to the glass and smiled. Some blew kisses back.
Pharez told each one, “I see you.”
“So many people feel forgotten, invisible or unappreciated, especially now,” she said. “I remind you that you are important, and the world needs you.”
Gatherings were limited to groups of 10, which reduced celebrations and changed plans. One was a small wedding on the Fairhope bluff in front of family and a few friends.
In the groom's wallet was the camouflage barrette his bride gave him for good luck before a soccer game when they were 12 years old. He knew then that he would marry her one day.
"We planned a big wedding at the Grand Hotel, but look at this beautiful day overlooking the bay,” the mother of the bride said. “Life goes on, and they will be just as happy."
Some people wrote messages of hope on sidewalks, in windows or on poster board they held on the corners of streets: “God Bless You,” “Hang in there,” and “You’ll never walk alone.”
One family left out a bowl of treats on the sidewalk in front of their house with the note, "From our Heart to Your Tummy."
Some started groups to walk and get healthy together.
Others paid for the orders of strangers at restaurants or mowed the lawns of the elderly for free.
Martha Miller started the Kindness Rocks garden in Fairhope during the Coronavirus. Each day she and a group of friends put out 25 or 30 rocks with paintings or positive messages, such as "Rise by lifting others," "Stand up for the weaker" and "Happiness comes in waves. It will happen again."
She hopes her rocks are a reminder that each of us is going to be OK.
2020 was also the year of hurricanes spinning through the Gulf of Mexico. The 100 mile-per-hour winds of slow-moving Sally snapped power lines and trees, leaving many of us in the dark.
The aftermath of the hurricane once again revealed our better nature.
Neighbors with chainsaws cut trees from roads and driveways before the storm had passed. In the parking lots of gas stations and churches, hot meals were cooked and given away for free.
After Sally, Reshay Keith started the Barnwell Blessings Barn in her front yard. She stocked it with food and clothes because little aid reached her side of Baldwin County. The sign reads, "Barnwell Blessing Box. Everything is free. We love y'all."
"After Sally, everyone was looking for food, even my family," she said. "We didn’t think it was going to be bad, so we didn’t prepare. The Red Cross came by a couple of days after Sally, but we never saw them again. I realized we needed something here and have a central place for our community.
"Before Sally, I never would have thought of this," she said. "It was COVID. Everything was black and white, and we were all fighting. But when something bad happens, people come together. It feels good when I lay down at night, knowing someone may be stopping by to get what they need."
The recovery from Sally brought neighbors and communities together after months of social distancing pulled them apart.
"Never be sad in life, even in times like this," said Carlett Martin, who ate at a restaurant with friends on March 18. It was the final hours before Mobile's restaurants, bars and breweries were required to end on-site food and drink consumption.
"Make a difference to change the atmosphere or situation," she said. "We can't alienate ourselves or be too distant for love. Keep encouraging each other to do the right thing and take care of ourselves. One day we will come back together in communion. Don't go down the path of depression and loneliness. Come back to the surface. Let's live and live on purpose."
2020 was a dark year that took so much away. But it also forced us to find new ways to care for each other through distance and devastation.
Hopefully, 2021 will bring something of an end to COVID-19. Then we can remove our masks and love in communion again.
Until then, we will keep doing the best we can.
