I don’t know why, but death from Covid has skipped the circle of those about whom I care and with whom keep in touch, reaching no closer, until now, than my housekeeper’s brother. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and friends and acquaintances have been dying off regularly since long before Covid, so the pool is shrinking. As a demographic, my age group has vaccinated against Covid at a high rate vs. the general population, so there’s that, too. I doesn’t really matter, why; what matters is that all that is in the past now. Now comes a funeral that matters, but I’m not going.
As Chief of the local volunteer fire department, my brother-in-law was one of the first people to be offered the Covid vaccination in his tiny community in Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District. As the owner of an automobile salvage business and one of the only tow trucks in town, he became widely known and befriended around the area. His open Christianity also played well among the local, rural minds and hearts, though it seemed somehow powerless to keep his daughters, by his previous wives, out of serious trouble. Many in his community will mourn my brother-in-law and his funeral will be well attended.
There is speculation that the deceased picked up a Covid-19 infection at his own father’s funeral, a likewise well attended event, last month. One must suppose that part of the World is inhabited by persons impervious to irony, because nearly the whole town will show up to mark my brother-in-law’s passing, no masks, no vaccinations, no actual awareness of what they are attending or why or the risks to themselves.
But I won’t be there, nor will the widow’s sister. The truth is, our brother-in-law is going down for a long dirt nap because (you already guessed it, didn’t you) he turned down his first in line chance to get vaccinated against Covid-19, and all his chances since. His pre-disposing condition for Covid, was a bizarre mutation of religion and politics, Christian Republicanism.
Like most of his community, the Fire Chief, long years ago, succumbed to the mental disorder of voting, and believing Republican, while practicing fundamentalist Christianity. That was enough to drag him into the vortex of disinformation used by organized Republicans to keep their followers’ minds disordered and impervious to objective reality.
Anybody who has seen movies knows that when an evil power like that gets loose in the World, little people suffer and die. Republican leaders didn’t mean to kill off one of their own believers and voters, but this is War, and there’s always collateral damage, amirite?
His funeral will involve a lot of speaking and talking about the Chief and his passing. I can confidently predict that none of it will touch on anything true or real. Much of it will be objective lies. I can’t go and be silent. If I speak truth, I risk tar, feathers and a rail.
Best not to go. I’m not the bad guy here.