And if it was the time to …

COVID19, COrona VIrus Desease 2019. It spread and we found ourselves confined. Locked down at home, deprived of our freedom and our usual bearings. Home, Work, Home, this usual catchphrase has given way to the Home sweet home or rather Stay At Home

Smart working is becoming the norm for many of us and for the lucky ones. But for many others, it is short-time working or worse: job loss!

And if it was the time to review our working methods?

And if it was the time for our leaders to be responsible?

Certain jobs considered secondary are rightly put in the spotlight. The garbage collectors who day after day collect our garbage and thus keep our cities clean so as not to add a new health crisis to the current one.

And if it was the time to have more consideration for them?

Farmers who continue to work on their farms and who find it difficult to sell their goods because the chains are almost all stopped, European labor being absent for crops in the fields. Some improvise direct sales on their farms.

And if it was the time to rediscover this wonderful profession, to favor short circuits in order to enhance those who feed us?

And if it was the time to encourage drive on the farm as try to do some by grouping together to offer individuals quality fresh food?

Truckers who, despite the worst difficulties finding highway rest areas where toilets and showers are still open, where finding food becomes a way of the cross, continue to carry goods. Far from home, from their families, they are greeted far too often by their customers or in delivery warehouses like plague victims.

And if it was the time to recognize that, without them, everything would be at a standstill; they are like blood in our veins and irrigate the whole territory of essential goods in everyday life?

The cashiers of supermarkets, hypermarkets, small food traders, bakers who every day are faithful to their post so that we continue to eat and to be able to buy what we need to fill our fridges.

And if it was the time to have respect and recognition for them?

And if it was the time to change our vision and behavior towards them?

Firefighters, our DEAR firefighters who, as always, are at the service of all of us. As for the rescue of Notre-Dame de Paris, they are there, present, faithful, they are our guardian angels who save our lives again and again.

And if it was the time to recognize their true worth, often heroes in the shadows?

The paramedics, city doctors, pharmacists, nurses and liberal nurses, home health aides who are on the front line every day to help us, to help us and direct us to hospitals when our health declines.

And if it was the time to bless them and give them thanks because they are the sentinels of our health?

The women and men of households who, every day, at the side of the hospital staff or at the home of the elderly sweep, clean, wash each surface for maximum safety against the virus. They go unnoticed, but are essential in the chain, facing this fight.

And if it was the time to give them well-deserved recognition?

Nursing staff, nurses, doctors, hospital staff who count their hours, who devote themselves body and soul to the bedside of so many patients affected by this new enemy. Often after exhausting hours spent with their patients, they do not even return home for fear of infecting their loved ones and stay in hotel rooms or apartments loaned by generous individuals.

And if it was the time to revalue these professions, to stop destroying the potential of hospitals, to give them the means to treat US?

And if it was the time to sanctuarize these trades so essential to our lives?

Many of our eyes are on retirement homes where our elders are decimated in a dramatic closed door. Our dear parents and grandparents leave without being able to say goodbye, without being able to give them one last hug. And for the lucky ones, who are still there, they are often confined to their room, alone, without understanding what is happening, without understanding why they have no more visits, except for the very dedicated but unrecognizable staff behind his masks. Their only meager comfort comes when they have a phone or video call from their family but in their eyes, we read the fear of being abandoned and of no longer being able to hug loved ones.

And if it was the time to tighten our family ties, to keep this precious link, not to take it for granted, in order to constantly strengthen it beyond this particular period?

And if it was the time to review, to rethink different places of life for our elders?

Each evening as a ritual, so many people applaud at their windows to thank the caregivers. Other initiatives enliven certain districts or buildings and their balconies flooding the neighborhood with music. We rediscover our neighbors, a very special neighborhood life, cloistered in our apartments.

And if it was the time to talk to each other, to humanize, to help each other, to show solidarity?

And if it was the time to go back to the way our grandparents lived by sharing places, common spaces, tools in the countryside, and helping each other?

zoo where humans would be in cages, taunt us by coming very close to our homes: Mallard ducks waddling on the sidewalks of Paris, wild boars in the city center in some regions, hinds and deer coming to graze the lawn in front of the dwellings. Or quite simply the rediscovery of the song of birds every day of this particular spring, without the incessant noise of the traffic of the city.

The water of Venice once again becomes transparent, whales coming very close to the coasts of Marseilles, dolphins swimming near the beaches, nature quickly regains its rights.

What if we made more room for nature in our daily lives, in our neighborhoods, in our cities and in our countryside?

And if it was the time to think differently, innovate the right way?

And if it was the time of more solidarity, of brotherhood?

And if it was the time to CHANGE?

Let’s not do like after the Spanish flu, SARS or Ebola, let’s learn from all of this. Let us know how to appreciate what life gives us.

And if it was just the time to LIVE DIFFERENTLY?