Pandemics.
Global illness. No known treatment.
Non-discriminate on who becomes ill or who dies.
Covid-19. Spanish Flu or Flu Pandemic of 1918. Black plague. "The Pox." Polio.
Man's battle against microscopic enemy has waged war in epic proportions and sometimes won and sometimes lost. But man, being an intelligent being and vying for the continuation of humanity, fights on.
My family, those through history and currently living, have been touched ever so lightly by pandemics. We've been so thankful to have been spared.
I recall stories my husband's father told of how as a young army man during WWI the Spanish Flu waged rampant. So many young, strong men were sick and dying. My father-in-law, a young man at the time, unmarried, and in the army became ill.
He was a "strapping" strong young man who had grown up on a southern farm. It was a 2-mule farm and his father worked his sons as hard as he worked the mules. Each son inherited a portion of the farm, but my father-in-law went into the army.
He didn't get to fight in the traditional sense of a country at war. But he fought. He fought the Spanish Flu. There were so many sick and only the ones expected to survive were cared for. The others were placed in the "dead room."
My father-in-law was placed in the "dead room" where he remained for two weeks.
As he told and re-told this story, his face would become slack and a faraway gaze would come into his eyes. It was undoubtedly a terrible experience. But he lived.
He lived. Married. Fathered six children (one died in infancy). Raised his family during the great depression and fed them by working hard at various jobs. He was a hard working, strong man that lived 97 years.
Pandemics. They come. They go. They destroy. They spare. But man must fight with every tool available to be certain that mankind does survive. That our young don't perish nor our weakened older generation suffer.
I am thankful for the Smallpox vaccination, the Polio vaccination, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccination. Others that have either eradicated or controlled the pandemics and despicable illnesses that man faces.
I am sure a lot of family could tell this same story. My mother is almost 92 so I am sure if she thought about it she could tell some stories about the Spanish Flu. As a child her grandfather also lived with them. so there had to be a lot of stories. It would be nice if a lot of more stories were told about the Spanish Flu.
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