Forgiving And Forgetting?

                           

I read an article recently that posed the question of whether or not relationships can be repaired that were damaged or torn asunder over disagreements about Covid restrictions, mandates and vaccinations. In other words, once the pandemic is over or even now, when it is at least manageable, is it possible to forgive and forget?

One of the stories in the article discussed an ICU nurse on the frontlines of trying to save those who had fallen ill, only to be met by a reaction from her husband that has torn her marriage apart:

“He just invalidated everything I said. He tried to turn it around on me. Nothing I said mattered. I just felt like it was my job to convince him.”

Marie said her husband and his friends get most of their information from far-right sources, such as U.S. conspiracist site Infowars, Rebel News and Canadian anti-vax activist Chris Sky.

Things got progressively worse when the vaccine came out and Marie, as a health worker, was one of the first in her city to get a shot.

“All of a sudden, he told me I was only going to live for a couple more years.”

Clearly, such lunacy would be hard to live with. Even those trained to deal with afflicted people are having a hard time here. One such person is University of Toronto psychologist  Steve Joordens, who

has a close relative who is against COVID-19 vaccines and masks. Initially, he tried to talk to the person about it. But after a few difficult and heated conversations, he stopped.

“We cannot agree to disagree. So, we don’t talk,” he said, “which is tough.”

Further complicating things, this relative has power of attorney over Joordens’s mother, and decided that she would not be vaccinated.

“I had this real worry that Mom is going to die alone. That’s what horrified me,” he said. “That’s a hard thing for me to get over.”

Another psychologist,  Hilary Bersieker, suggests the difficulty lies in how we see those who challenged and flouted Covid protocols:

[G]etting vaccinated and following public health measures are caring and socially conscious things to do, whereas refusing the shot and flouting health rules might be selfish. The more such decisions are moralized, the harder they can be to get over...

That really is the crux of the matter for me. Although I have no friends or relatives who fall into the refusenik camp, if I had, I doubt that I would ever be able to truly forget what the crisis revealed about a side of their character/level of cognition previously unseen. In being so selfish and benighted, how could I ever really respect them or feel any affinity for them again? 

People who discount the science, content with fringe sites filled with fake information, have a lot invested in their stances, one that suggests ego triumphing over goodwill and community spirit. I leave you with the following Twitter video that exemplifies such individuals. The woman in it cravenly claims to be taking a principled stand.

Be sure to watch to the end.