January 15, 2021 will be a day I will always remember. It is the day that I received my first dose of the Moderna COVID vaccine. I drove up to the Otsego Board of Health Meadows complex near Cooperstown on a misty morning past snow covered fields. Once I got there, things moved smoothly. The staff were kind and efficient. The shot was painless. I would love to be able to say that as I drove back the sun broke through, the mist parted and the world shone in brilliant upstate New York winter sunshine. However, that didn’t happen. It was still a grey morning. The mist dissipated slightly and I arrived back at my office. I spent the rest of the day working albeit with a slightly sore left arm.
Still – I could not get over the fact that I had finally been vaccinated. As I am scheduled to teach an in-person section of a class in the Spring semester, I was eligible. I am the first in my immediate family to reach this milestone. I still need a second dose. I still need to be careful. However, I have been vaccinated.
Vaccination. It is just a word. However, after what my family, the nation and the world have been through in the last year it seems to mean so much more.
Vaccination. It hints at new possibilities and a return to a more normal way of existence: A life without masks. A life with actual human interactions. A life with travel. A life that includes going out to the movies, sharing meals with my friends at each other’s houses and all the other small human pleasures that make life worth living. A life that is not under constant threat of extinction. A life without so much suffering and death.
I dearly hope that once all my family is vaccinated that we can actually cross the border into Canada and visit with parents, siblings, nephews, nieces, in-laws, and friends whom we have not seen since summer 2019. I dearly hope that once vaccinations ramp up, my college can return to its usual routine of in-person teaching, student activities, visiting speakers etc. I dearly hope that we can put the pandemic year into the rearview mirror and think about living again.
On November 10, 1942 following almost three years of constant setbacks, the British secured their first major military victory over the German Army at the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. To mark this occasion, Winston Churchill said the following in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s luncheon in London – “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. The Second World War still had several years to run to its course but at that moment, hope in victory finally appeared.
It is my fondest wish that January 2021 marks the end of the beginning. I finally have hope that victory over COVID can be secured, however long the battle may be.
