I wonder why I don’t see the beauty and the sparkles of the blossoming cherry trees. Why I don’t feel the joy hearing the songs of the birds near me. All I see now is the surge of political hypocrisies. Blames and hatred ignited by partisan politics fueled by cruelty of humanity. I thought I was part of the world filled with love, light, and beauty. But I am now in the midst of uncertainty, where cooperation, unity, and solidarity among people are indeed illusory. Everything now seems dark, cloudy, gloomy. Stigma, racism, discrimination, and xenophobia, the ugliness of humanity. This crisis tests our capacity to understand, to overcome. I am now sitting quietly in darkness to transform my fear to trust humanity, To have patience and slowly erase anxiety. I am trying to continually believe that we all live under the same glow and glitter of the sun. And that though we may even have different rivers and mountains, we still speak the same language. The language of peace and harmony, the language of love and shared humanity. I am looking forward soon, on the very day when we humans wake up to a new reality. With our helpful hands, open arms and compassionate heart, shining each other’s journey.
After all it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic. Margaret Chan