What Is Normal Now?: The COVID-19 Pandemic from My Perspective as a Senior Citizen

By Gloria Colli Counsellor

Earlier this year, I went about my business as usual as did most of my fellow Americans. Then 2020 COVID-19 pandemic gripped our country, and the nightmare began.The nightmare was particularly frightening to our senior citizen, elder population. Also targeted were people with autoimmune disease and preexisting conditions.All Americans had our freedoms and liberties taken away in the blink of an eye, our faith was challenged, our schools were closed, and businesses shut down indefinitely.We lost all sense of normalcy. It was mind-boggling.I was inspired to write about the different challenges we were facing, and the idea wouldn't leave me until I began writing.This is my account of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from my perspective as a senior citizen labeled as the most vulnerable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098065935

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What Is Normal Now?

The COVID-19 Pandemic from My Perspective as a Senior Citizen

Gloria Colli Counsellor

Copyright © 2020 by Gloria Colli Counsellor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Home Economics and Unemployment

Service

Making Time for What Matters

Keeping the Faith

Our Freedom and Our Liberty…in Danger?

Family

We Will Get Through This

To all the nurses, doctors, first responders, aides, and caregivers who have risked their lives and sacrificed much to take care of the people infected with the COVID-19 virus.

The whole country looks to you with love, admiration, and respect for all that you do for us.

Your unselfish commitment and dedication to ministering to all the patients in your care that are sick with this terrible plague is an inspiration to all of us. This country will never forget your sacrifice and the care you give, especially to the elderly, who are the most vulnerable to this pandemic.

Yours is sometimes the last smile they will see, the last hand that will hold theirs, and the last prayer that they will hear.

It takes a special heart and enormous strength and courage to take on this challenge of love.

Thank you! May God bless you and keep you safe!

Acknowledgments

I want my children and grandchildren to know without a doubt how much I love and cherish them. They have always been a source of pride and admiration.

My daughter, Dawn Colbert, is also my best friend and confidant. She is a role model with a heart of gold, and she is a loving and amazing mother to Patrick, Sarah, Nicky, and Dana.

My son, Jay Counsellor, has been in business with me since he graduated high school. I am so blessed and grateful that he has stuck with me and our company through thick and thin. He is a writer and inventor himself and always an inspiration to me. His sense of calm, voice of reason, and common sense whenever I need them have sustained me in the tough times. I am so proud of the great father he is to his three children, James, Brianna, and Giavonna.

I am so grateful for their love, loyalty, and support!

If Man Is Moderate

And Contented,

Then Even Age

Is No

Burden,

If He Is Not,

Then Even Youth

Is Full Of

Cares.

—Plato

Preface

A month ago, like many of us, I went about my business as usual.

All of us went to work, school, or if you are a senior citizen like me, we went shopping, out to lunch or dinner with our friends. I also enjoyed an occasional fun visit to the casino to play for a day. I appreciated the fact that now that I am of a certain age, I have the flexibility to fill my days as I please.

Many of us, myself included, are planning and looking forward to our next vacation. Whether it be a cruise (my personal favorite), visiting friends across the miles, visiting another country, or seeing our beautiful country before it is too late.

In what seems like a blink of an eye, everything has changed. Everything, you ask?

Yes, everything, well maybe not everything…read on.

People often reminisce about some epic event in their lives and can identify exactly where they were, what they were doing, and even what they were thinking at that particular moment.

There are two that stand out from my lifetime. The first is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963.

I was at work at a beauty salon, my first job as a hairdresser in training. I was shampooing a client’s hair. When I heard the news, I dropped the hose, drenching my client, and getting water everywhere!

The horrific 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center is another life-altering event in our time.

I was on my way to work when I first heard the news of the plane that flew into the first tower. What a terrible accident, I thought! How can this be? I remember thinking about a dinner I had with my family at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of tower 2. We were so high…small planes seemed to be so close. I remember thinking, what if one of those small planes got too close? When I finally arrived at work, my secretary was horrified. She told me that a second plane hit the second tower. That was when it hit us…this was certainly not an accident. Life changed for all of us at that moment.

Now the COVID-19 virus has attacked the world.

I have learned new words and phrases such as pandemic, shelter in place, ventilators, PPE, lockdown, and so on. Everything we knew as normal is suddenly obliterated. Life is drastically changed not only for me, but for the whole world. Everything I had taken for granted was no more. My freedom to come and go as I pleased vanished. I was no longer free to visit my children, grandchildren, or friends, nor could they visit me.

You see, I am a senior citizen, part of the vulnerable population. I have been glued to my television set. I don’t want to miss any of the COVID-19 briefings and updates. They are increasingly frightening. The daily statistics on the number of infections and deaths in our individual communities and states are growing exponentially.

I am not alone. The ratings of these news stations have soared. They have our attention. Of course we want to stay informed. We want this nightmare to end. Above all, we want the facts, we want the truth; indeed, we need the truth!

We hear the experts, our political leaders, and the media all giving voice to how this new enemy is attacking us. They give us their projections, and we are being told what we should be doing to protect ourselves.

We have seen frightening and grotesque pictures of bats and refrigerated trucks in