Praying for the best

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say our prayers and go to bed knowing all is well in our world? Well, it doesn’t work that way for some of us. Some nights sleep won’t come, and other nights when we do, we’ve worn ourselves out with so much worry nightmares filled with fear of was or could fill our head.

Last summer the talk was about bedbugs. My thought was, what if they came marching down or up Grant Street to my house. They don’t knock before they invade. They just move in and go to bed.

People were saying the night biters are everywhere although I hadn’t heard about them for many years.

I don’t have bugs in my house, with the exception of a few ants in the springtime. I send the survivors of my attacks back to where they came from without regret.

There was talk in the checkout line one day about bedbugs. One lady said do not shop at certain thrift stores, and someone spotted them at a theater, and her sister found them in the boy’s upstairs bedroom. Before I moved out of the line, I heard one lady say, “If you ever get them, Betty, do what my grandma did. She put can lids of coal oil under her bedposts at night. If they don’t drown, drunk, or sober, they won’t be able to reach you! I shuddered to think of that. I could smell that coal oil.

That night I had a nightmare, like the invasion of locusts, bedbugs, bigger than dung beetles, in huge numbers found their way to my crisp occupied sheets.

I startled when I saw a five-gallon can of kerosene, the spout capped with a huge Irish potato, a flashback to another time. Half out of my wits, I flew out of bed, and fumbled for the flashlight in the darkroom.

I did see a man wearing a CPAP mask sleeping peacefully; nary a bug headed his way.

After a walk through my clean house, freed from anxiety, I hunkered down in my bed with a clear head and slept like a baby.

Now we focus on the latest health scare, a new strain of Coronavirus. I worry about my family, your family, and people around the globe. I pray that research will prevail, and preventive measures can be taken soon. Researchers tell us they found most people infected with the virus develop flu-like symptoms within five days of exposure, and nearly all endure fever, cough, and breathlessness within 11.5 days.

We seniors can’t run, and we can’t hide if it comes our way. We have pre-existing health conditions, specialists to see, and treatments this month and next. In the meantime, we will take all precautionary advice given by the professionals at the CDC and our health care providers and do our homework.