'Enjoy the little things in life because one day you`ll look back and realize they were the big things.' - Kurt Vonnegut
My mom has told me on many occasions that one of the first things she did after she gave birth to me was picture me at my high school graduation. And eighteen years later, I did graduate from high school, and my mom was there to see it. Four years later, however, my mom was at home for my brother’s high school graduation. Within a matter of months, something my mother couldn’t have conceived of missing for the world, and should’ve been one of the most special days of her life, turned into just another entry on the endless list of sacrifices made this year in the name of the greater good. While she expressed her sadness, she never even came remotely close to complaining, at least to me, about such a special moment being ripped from her forever.
And sure, while most people would agree a mother missing her child’s graduation is sad, they would argue that it pales in comparison to the tragedy of the pandemic - the very tragedy that moves such as cancelling graduations are designed to help mitigate. But this is incredibly disingenuous framing - it pits the entire pandemic against a single sacrifice - but it’s not a single sacrifice. It’s thousands of parents missing their children’s graduation. It’s millions of children whose first day of school was spent in front of a screen instead of in a nurturing classroom. It’s thousands of high school athletes who never got to play their last game. It’s countless people who spent their last holiday alone, dying before the “next one” comes. I don’t mean to ignore the massive tragedies that the pandemic itself has caused. But so too have the shutdowns, cancellations, and overall disruption of the moments that make us human and the ones that make us lucky to be alive. While each individual little moment seems insignificant compared to the scope of the pandemic, the sheer volume of life moments we have lost is just as large in scale, if not larger, and almost, if not just as tragic.
These days, every time I think back to my happiest memories, I immediately think about how somebody somewhere is missing out on an equivalent memory because of the way things are. My week spent with family in the Summer of 2010 in New Hampshire, which featured so many moments I will cherish until the day I die - could not have happened this year, so thousands of kids will never get to make the same memories I did. The wonderful feeling of being off on my own for the first time during my first semester in college, venturing out into the city, the late night talks with friends, going on trips to New York - this year’s college freshman, my brother included, will never make those equivalent memories. Every Christmas I spent as a child with family - the children of today don’t get their turn at the memory.
This is not a persuasive essay. I’m not here to try to convince you that our sacrifices aren’t worth it. Only time will tell as to whether the effects from the restrictions were costlier overall to our lives than if they hadn’t existed, (although I would ask that you don’t dismiss such a possibility out of hand, as there are already some academic, peer-reviewed studies out which suggest the damage to human life from many of the restrictive measures is worse than the pandemic itself. [1]) I’m simply trying to stress just how immense all of these sacrifices are. Nothing about them is small. Things are not “a little different this year”, as countless commercials would have us believe. These sacrifices represent why we value life in the first place.
So while essential workers and those that lost their lives to COVID-19 deserve every bit of respect and sympathy that they have received, so too does everyone who has sacrificed countless little moments.
So take a moment and reflect on everything we’ve lost. Every day at school and every day at summer camp. Every field trip, every family road trip, and every holiday party at school. Every first date, every group date, and every wedding. Every prom and every graduation. Every jubilant celebration and every somber funeral. Every start to a lifelong friendship. Every church service, every cultural tradition, and every rite of passage. Every college freshman learning to live on their own, and every person near death doing everything they love one more time. Every 2AM conversation with friends in a college dorm and every 10AM chat with coworkers at the water cooler. Every poker night, every watch party, every Christmas party, and every birthday party. Every night out on the town, every celebratory dinner, every chance encounter. Every joke. Every smile. Every hug. Every kiss. Every moment. Every memory that we could've had. Should've had. Never had.
Life is about so much more than just surviving. It's about being happy. Seizing the day and making every moment count. Us simply existing is not a good thing in and of itself if our time isn't filled with moments that make it worth it. It's one thing to put those moments on hold for a while to make sure more people live long enough to have more of those moments. But we cannot lose sight of what really matters in the end. "Saving" a life is worth nothing if that person isn't happy in the extra time they are given. Every day, in the United States alone, 7,500 people die. 7,500 people who will never again get to hug their loved ones or visit their favorite restaurant. Every day, Americans live 900,000 years collectively. Based on the average life expectancy of 78.5, that comes out to ~11,500 lifetime's worth of time lived by Americans every day. In a week, it's 80,500 lifetimes, in a month, its 345,000 lifetimes, and in a year, it's four million lifetimes. Four million lifetimes' worth of time that will pass no matter what.
We can't hibernate and save it for later. We can't hit a pause button on our lives. The only thing that we do have control over is what to fill that time. So while it is important to consider people's safety, we shouldn't get so caught up in safety that we forget why it even matters in the first place. We don't save people for the sake of saving them, we save them so that they can have a chance at living a happy life.