“Practice Grace”

            Every day, our national news spotlights an ugly side of our country. Too many people in power who want to kill rational thinking by directing attention to fears to control our dialogues. Their rhetoric feed negative and dreadful constructs. Daily, they drone on and on against diversity in thought and deed. They expertly played a long game by infiltrating local school boards and subverting local communities. Their grass roots movement now bears malignant, poisonous fruit. The end result indoctrinated entire sections of our culture to fear and hate.

            Yesterday, I briefly visited a family member whose husband died in December from COVID-19. He believed the propaganda that COVID-19 was nothing worse than the flu. He spouted their words about masking blocking his individual rights. He refused vaccination even when his wife and children received their own shots. He believed their cancerous disinformation. His COVID-19 battle started in July, with months of hospitalization and then a shift to a rehabilitation facility. When his insurance ran out, he came home to die.

            All I could think of on my walk home was that he’d been killed by dangerous opinions. How did we get to this point as a society?

            We stumbled somehow onto a path that doesn’t practice grace. We’re mired in muck that no longer allows for kindness, mercy or decency. I don’t know how to wash away the filth.

 

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

“Old Friends and New Disappointments”

            The responses of various friends to national and world events have left me disillusioned. Did I ever know the true spirit of woman who sits in mass daily and yet defends the attack on the Capitol? Did I misjudge the friend who insists her right to refuse to mask and vaccinate during this pandemic outweighs my rights to stay healthy? Did I naively trust the man who now insists he must own and display an AR-15 when I visit?

            Have these people always been so different from my vision of them, and have they donned masks throughout our years of friendship? Or have they changed without my noticing? Can these relationships recover, or will these disappointments color our interactions from now on?

            Already, there’s less contact initiated by these friends towards me because I know the insurrection at the Capitol endangers our democracy even as those supporters of our former president defend The Big Lie more than a year later. I encourage everyone to get vaccinated for COVID-19, wear masks, and social distance because it’s the moral choice for not just our country, but for the world. I cannot “un-see” the photographs of my friends and family arming for a war that they aspire to begin.

 

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Something to Prove”

 

unnatural competition
sibling rivalries created and nurtured
by narcissistic manipulations
the alcoholic mother and enabling father
doling out love to the winners
the challenge evolves
 to plastic wives and drunken children
awards for misogyny and adultery
applause for cheats
 and deceits
victory gained
by zealous clannish unity
that punishes the different drummer
with ostracism and disdain
darkness shadows each generation
with something to prove

 

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman  

“Happy Call”

            When my phone rang early on Saturday morning, and I saw it was my brother, I hesitated before answering. The first thought hitting my brain went straight to, “What’s wrong now?” That dread roots itself in a rough year of catastrophe.

            I tried to coach my voice into a neutral, “Hi” because I try to protect Charles from the anxiety his calls often trigger.

            “What’s up?” he asked.

            “Me!” I quipped back as soon as I registered his tone of voice.

          “I’m treating myself to breakfast—an omelet. Then I’m going shopping.” His voice sounded upbeat for a change. We chatted back and forth for about half an hour about the new kitchen plates he picked up last week and his planned visit to my sister’s house next weekend. We talked about the ice that froze San Antonio a few days before and his relief that the frozen snap didn’t impact his newly insulated plumbing down in League City.

            Everything we talked about was light, bright and breezy. Getting a happy call is so rare that I found myself writing about it today. But . . . maybe this will be what 2022 brings to our family.

 

Stressed at Christmas 2021

Happy Charles 2014

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman