There Are No Winners

It is not unfamiliar, though thankfully rare, when a husband and father must make a soul-crushing decision. Something went wrong during labor, and doctors can either save mom or baby but not both.  To intensify this bleak reality, doctors leave the decision in the hands of the husband/father.  Who does he save?  The woman to whom he promised love and fidelity, or the child created as a product of their love?  

As if to rub salt in his mortal wound, he will have no shortage of critics.  If he chooses to save his wife, many will say he should have saved baby (“Isn’t the highest act of love a mother giving her life so her child may live?”). It would be equally true if he saves the baby (“They could have just tried for another child.”)  If he is a religious man and his friends are theological nitwits, he will hear abusive voices telling him he should have prayed more and just believed that God could have saved them both.  

It doesn’t matter what he decides.  He cannot win.  He will leave the hospital a broken man.  Not because he chose wrong, but because he was forced to choose at all.  

I feel like the current COVID-19 pandemic has left us in a similar situation.  On the one hand is the obvious threat to life, and from what I understand, a coronavirus death is one that is lonely and miserable.  It has already taken too many lives, is transmitted too easily, and puts too many in jeopardy.  It is heartbreaking for those who have lost someone, lonely for those who are in the ICU, frightening for family who are prohibited from entering the waiting room.

On the other hand is the threat to the economy.  By “economy,” I don’t mean the impersonal transaction of goods and services as a normal part of a capitalist society.  Rather, there are human beings whose livelihood depends on their job and have suddenly found themselves in an ever-crowded unemployment line (“economy” comes from a Greek word meaning “Household”).  Mom and dad both work full time just to keep the lights on, the house warm, and the children fed. But the governor forbids all “non-essential” work and mom and dad are laid off indefinitely.  To top it off, each passing day comes with a growing risk that there will be no job for them when the governor eases restrictions.  The "household" is in jeopardy: both society as a whole and literal individual family units, upon which society rests.  

Government has played the role of the father, choosing one life over another.  Our politicians have made the decision about who to try to “save” and who to let die (that is not a metaphorical or sensational line; stopping the nation like we have will not come without deadly consequences).  I don’t believe it was a partisan political move, but under the counsel and direction of people with a different set of knowledge.  Like it or not, this is the job our leaders signed up for, and making a decision—difficult as it is—is part of that job.

The point of what I’m trying to say is not (a) our politicians made the right call to “flatten the curve” or (b) our politicians should have left society open and let nature run its course.  Both of those responses are too easy.

I admire people like Lori Lightfoot who are trying to see “shelter-in-place” as an extended vacation where we finally get a chance to do those projects around the house we've been putting on hold.  And the reason people like that say what they do is not because they are socialists trying to create dependence on the state.  They have a set of values that led them to believe the wisest and most responsible action is to prevent the spread of infection by staying home. 

I admire that, but with all due respect, most of the people saying those things are not standing in the unemployment line.  They have a job where they can work from home with relative ease and perhaps a salary that has remained untouched.  They do not have empty fridges on one side and hungry mouths on the other.  They do not have houses in jeopardy of being foreclosed, or cars in danger of being repossessed.  So many people are either out of work or have had their hours and pay cut such that they are not just treading water, they are sinking fast.  The likelihood of all of those “non-essential” jobs still waiting for them once restrictions lift is getting rather slim.  And to top it off, the government’s small business loan and stimulus check is nothing more than a bandage on a bullet wound.  

Those who think it is perfectly acceptable to “shelter-in-place” indefinitely for the good of the most vulnerable have a point.  But those who are eager to open up are not heartless and irresponsible monsters.  They are desperate and afraid.  They are the baby who died because the dad chose to save his wife.  

There is another side to that coin.  The guy in downstate Illinois suing the governor for extending the shelter-in-place order is not a dufus who hates the elderly and other at-risk people because he wants to open the economy.  Instead, he is operating from a different set of values—not better or worse, just different.  People like that are concerned for those households who are having to make tough decisions about whether they eat dinner tonight or pay the rent.  But with all due respect, they are probably not the same ones who are worried that their loved one who tested positive might need to go on a ventilator because their oxygen levels keep dropping.  They are probably not being forbidden from seeing their intubated parent in the ICU because only medical professionals are allowed beyond this point.  Or worse, they are not the ones figuring how to live-stream a memorial service because the funeral homes won’t admit more than 10 people at a time.  

Those who think we should all open the world back up, that we never should have closed in the first place, have a point.  But those who think we should stay at home a little longer and wear masks in limited public outings are not socialists bent on destroying small businesses.  They are desperate and afraid.  They are the wife who died because her husband chose to save the baby.

I am not advocating for one position over another.  All of the decisions being made at a government level are all above my pay grade and I have neither the time nor the patience to sift through all the research and data which is being published faster than a toddler with a Sharpie in his hand.  On top of that, my wife (I perpetually default to her expert medical opinion) has discovered that even world-renowned infectious disease experts disagree with one another about the scope and severity of COVID-19 (Dr. Anthony Fauci on the one hand, Dr. Paul Offit on the other).  If world-renowned experts cannot come to a uniform consensus, it is unlikely and unreasonable to expect you have enough facts to speak with authority on your social media feed.  I sure don't.  

I do know this: People are sick and dying, and people are unemployed and desperate.  Our nation has had to make the choice between preserving one group at the expense of the other.  Regardless of whether you think that was right or wrong, your conclusion most likely reflects a set of values (or experience) personal to you.  But it doesn’t make the other side wrong, incompetent, heartless, or whatever other label we are accustomed to smearing.  

As I peruse social media and news outlets, I see a lot of strong opinions from people whose knowledge doesn't match their confidence (and condescension).  But what I do not see is grace and patience.  There is a lot of yelling, name-calling, questioning of another’s sense of morality, and very little honest discussions and listening to the other side.  

It’s too easy for those whose jobs are bulletproof simply to say, “Stay at home; we need to flatten the curve!”  It’s too easy for those who aren’t vulnerable simply to say, “Let’s get society back to work!”  This is hard for everyone.  It is hard for those who are sick and in the ICU.  It is hard for those whose loved ones are vulnerable.  It is hard for small business owners whose first 6 months of 2020 are a total loss.  It is hard for the recently unemployed hoping there is work waiting for them once this is over.  What we need in the meantime are fewer “experts” who studied at the University of Google and more friends who excel at mercy and humility.  

If we knew the dad who had to make the impossible decision between saving either his wife or his baby because he couldn’t save both, I would like to think we all would respond, not with self-assured and calculated criticism, but we would take the humble and gracious road, bear with him in his grief, and thank God above we didn’t have to make that same choice.  I am not asking you to forgo or withhold your opinion, only asking you to have grace.  There are no winners, only losers.  We don’t need to exploit the collective loss by tearing down what is left of humanity.