My choice is not to live in fear

Dear Editor,

I have an acquaintance, 70 years old, who has always been healthy and very active. This summer she seemed to be not quite her normal self. In October when she began sending incoherent texts to family and close friends, they immediately sought medical help. She was diagnosed with quick onset dementia and placed in a nursing facility, where, surrounded by people, she began at once to recover. Now they believe she was suffering symptoms of isolation, depression, and fear.

The time to be afraid is when you have to be afraid. When you have fragile health you take precautions that include limiting contact with others, avoiding crowds, maintaining a “social” distance, and covering your face, if you want to do so. I know more than one person who has done this for years. Never did they require that the whole world must do the same thing. Never have they believed that it was everyone else’s job to make them safe.

But now, popular opinion, fanned vigorously by constant reports of “cases” and deaths and upsurges and “hotspots”, has labeled terror as “concern”, isolation as normal, and personal freedom and lack of fear as disrespectful, hurtful and wrong.

No one seems to notice that a virus is an act of nature. To say you can stop it by wearing a mask is the same as saying that you can stop a hurricane by boarding up your windows. Boards and masks may limit damage, or may not. To put up boards or to wear a mask are personal decisions, based entirely on your own perception of whether or not you are afraid.

This year, however, we have seen fear legislated and ordained. We’ve been told to cower in our house, avoid people we love, and most of all, we have been told to feel guilty if we don’t feel fear. I do not wear a mask. Not because this virus is harmless or over-blown. I am not afraid. It is my choice to live without fear. And I think that’s a choice we all have to make and should be free to make, for ourselves.

Stella Taylor,

Buffalo, Mo.