About 3 million people die in the United States every year. That’s about 8,000 per day or approximately 6 people every minute. In fact, depending on how fast you read, somewhere between 10 and 20 people are going to die in the United States before you finish reading this. They’re going to die from diseases, accidents, murder, suicide and old age. People die all the time.
Three million people in the United States alone won’t see Christmas next year. Just over eight thousand of us won’t see Christmas tomorrow.
Whenever I see a public service announcement saying something like “Stay home, stay safe and celebrate next year.”, I’m reminded of those 3 million people for which this will be their last Christmas. I think of the people who “stayed safe” at Thanksgiving, assuming that there would always be another holiday at which they could hug their loved ones. But, for many of those people, the next holiday never came.
Yes, people die. It happens all the time. Zoom calls and social distancing may sound like a great idea but doing so is no guarantee of anything. “Staying safe at home” may keep someone from catching COVID-19 but that same person could trip and die from the fall later the same day. If you were there with them to celebrate together, perhaps they never would have fallen.
I want you to think of one of your loved ones. What if you knew that this would be the last Christmas you’d ever have with that person? Would that make a difference? I’m guessing it would. If you knew that you’d never have a chance to celebrate with them again, I’m guessing you’d ignore all the people telling you to stay home and you’d spend as much time with them as you can.
To truly be alive, you have to do more than just survive. To be truly alive you need to touch, hug, enjoy time together and build lasting memories. So that’s what you should do. Isolating your mom, dad or grandparents from their family in the name of safety is no guarantee that they’ll actually stay safe. By trying to protect them from one thing, you could be putting them in danger from another.
Instead of isolating your loved ones to help them merely survive, you should be enjoying with all them the things that make life worth living. You should spend as much time with them as you can and hug them like there’s no tomorrow. Because one day, there won’t be.
