" I Know Just How You Feel"

            A grieving family,  a wake, a line of friends gathered to express their condolences, a 'well-meaning' neighbor uncertain about what to say offers:  "I know just how you feel".  A weary kinsperson of the deceased retorts, "The hell you do!"  What just happened ?

   What to say on such  occasions vexes many otherwise kind and articulate people and out come such bromides as: "He lived a long life"; "They are in a better place"; "It's for the best"; "She is with God now"; "You can have another child in the future".   Just being quiet with someone can sometimes be more comforting than 'the perfect word'.

    Confrontation with death or other losses can stir a range of emotions and bewilderment as to what we are experiencing and how to express it. Is it 'Regret' that such an event even occurred to another human, even someone whom we do not know or with whom we have significant differences ?

   Then there are those three words, often used interchangeably, which express rather  different sentiments: Sympathy, Empathy, and Compassion.

   Sympathy conveys regret or pity for someone experiencing a difficult time. One dictionary indicates that sympathy  involves keeping our own feelings separate from the other person's experience.

   Empathy, however, indicates "understanding another person's emotions and suffering ...by putting ourselves in their place", even if we have not had the same experience ourself.  Empathy has been the target of harsh criticism recently by 'people in the news'. By contrast, the historian Hannah Arendt emphasized that "the death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism".  Compassion carries matters a step further by taking action to help the sufferer.

   Actions and words that confuse (whether deliberately or not) the distinctions of these responses have the effect of individual and societal harm.

       Satchel

   

STICK OR BE 'STUCK'

  On a Spring day in 1955, Principal C.H. MacGregor announced  to our assembled student body that the new Polio vaccine had proven effective.  I was a high school Junior and Polio had been the scourge of my youth. Quarantines had become annual occurrences. Iron Lungs made breathing possible and numerous other people experienced life-altering crippling. Two of my schoolmates had their mobility impaired. While exact numbers cannot be determined, there were thousands of Polio deaths in the 1940's and 1950's. With 3145 recorded deaths, 1952 was the deadliest.  Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine soon changed all that. We gladly rolled up our sleeves for the vaccine and Polio cases soon declined. One source reported the eradication of the disease  in 1977 with the last indigenous case. The last imported case occured in 1993. Score one for vaccines !

    Measles, that's another story. Before the development of a vaccine, annual U.S. cases averaged 48,000 with 400-500 deaths. By 2000, with vaccines,  health officials declared the disease eliminated; but according to the CDC, as of August 26, 2025, 1408 cases have occurred this year with 92% of those unvaccinated, with 60+% of those persons under 20 years old.

   Now since 2019, there is COVID which has been as divisive as deadly.  I have seen two totals for U.S. deaths during the pandemic ... one reported 1,219,487 and another 1,226,351. While Operation Warp Speed produced a vaccine that was safe and effective and is credited with saving millions of lives, anti-vaccine (as well as anti-masking) sentiment and behaviors reduced its potential effectiveness. As of August 26, 2025, combatting another surge of Covid cases has been complicated by politicized guidelines by anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  

   Whereas in the past, Covid vaccine was available to anyone 6 months and older, eligibility is currently limited to persons 65 years old and older and those with underlying health concerns.  Additionally, Kennedy has taken other steps that curtail the availabilty of vaccines that have raised alarm in many physicians and health care providers.  A Health News Report from NPR on August 27, 2025, claimed that "the decision is expected to make it harder for many  people...to get a shot ahead of the expected winter COVID surge."  Additionally, it asserts that the "new restrictions on the update COVID vaccines, which target the LP.8.1 omicron subvariant, mean insurance  may no longer pay for the shots, doctors may balk at stocking and prescribing them, and pharmacists may be unable or unwilling to administer the vaccines."

   On September 1,2025, a group of former directors and former directors of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, going back to the 1970's, published an opinion piece, stating that what Kennedy "has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation's public health system ...is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced."  Kennedy's actions and decisions are "unacceptable" and "should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings." [NYT, 9/1/2025]

   Being well past 65, we will get the vaccine (pending its availability).  My brothers and their families, our adult children, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews. and friends should also have that option if they wish.  Anyone who wants the vaccine should receive it. Otherwise, many fear an impending public health disaster.

    Are you prepared ?

          Satchel