The Grinch That Stole Christmas

As we all tread carefully and fearfully towards a new time, a new Christmas, we entered this time of hope with hope.  We booked holiday plans, we made plans to celebrate with family and friends.  Making these plans was not an experience like any other before.  It took courage to embark on these plans, knowing that at any given time our plans could cease, at the drop of a hat.  We soldiered on, still fearful, still hopeful.

Then it happened. It happened the same way it has all year. The grinch was poised, ready to steal Christmas. This was a relentless grinch because he somehow stole the whole year and decided that he was going to continue stealing all the way through till Christmas. He stole our holiday plans. He stole our liberty. He stole our joy. We cancelled holidays. We downsized our invitation list. Our hearts broke as we realised that we would not be spending Christmas with all our loved ones. There are those who spent Christmas day in complete isolation.

There are those who worked round the clock on Christmas day to keep the grinch at bay with this amazing new technique of contact tracing.  It is an efficient weapon that has been successfully utilised in combating that sneaky grinch.  There are those who decided that the grinch does not exist because to acknowledge its existence would mean that one would have to face it and deal with it.  So, they partied in large numbers, exposing themselves to the grinch.  The grinch was happy because these parties were an open invitation to him.  Denial has worked for some but only until the grinch slithered into their lives and caused havoc.  He attacks those who chose to fight him, and he attacks those who don’t.  He shows no preference.  He is unyielding.  He crippled the world this year and will stop at nothing.

We are all human and in our human capacity we find our own way to deal with this monster who stole so much from us.  There is no right or wrong way to deal with it.  The grinch brought out the worst in some and the best in some.  If at all, the grinch showed us how human we are.  He showed us our strengths and weaknesses.

On the cusp of a brand-new year, we sit back and think of what we have lost so far.  We ponder on what more we are going to lose in the new year.  Life in its entirety is a journey of losses and gains.  The grinch has placed a magnifying glass on those losses and gains.  We have lost loved ones before the grinch appeared.  We have lost jobs, lives, loves, liberties, rights, health, friends, family, etc.  In retrospect, we have gained the same.  Before the grinch appeared, we lost and gained over and over again.  We are used to this.  We’ve dealt with this before.  The grinch thinks that he has won; that he has stolen our happiness and freedom.  Little does he know that we are more relentless that he is.  We’ve got this.