To our healers, providers, and supporters,
To those of you ensuring stocks of supplies arrive and are deployed as needed,
To those of you welcoming patients, whether from a desk or in an ambulance,
To those of you orchestrating the complex movements of a health system,
To those of you serving sustenance to the frontlines,
To those of you holding space for the suffering of others,
And to your families, to your healers, providers, and supporters.

a normal, pre-COVID, day your efforts are worthy of praise. But on any given normal day, the hurried pace of life limited the opportunity to be present to the important work of others generally, and to those in the health care system specifically. Resulting in an insufficiently adequate expression of appreciation for all that it takes to do your work. However, we have reached a new normal and your efforts amount to a sustained heroic labor. While there is little time for you to pause and be recognized, for there are too few beds and too few ventilators for the overflow of those in need, I and so many others are indebted to your service and yearn to shout our thanks and sing our praises. We remain physically distant in honor of the best-practices aimed at flattening the curve. In the hope of reducing the strain on those of you who comprise our health services community and limiting the reach of the novel coronavirus. There will come a time when we can begin the process of re-emergence. Our eyes squinting at the new dawn, we will collectively begin the process of rekindling an existence that will be changed from the normalcy we once knew.  

I write from the town of Harvard, Massachusetts where the brook behind my home runs swiftly, swollen from an early spring rain. There is new life emerging as silt and debris from winter are swept away and on the brook’s banks, verdant leaves sprout from the earth. A band of coyotes is howling and yelping from the forest, welcoming the changing season and reverberating our praises. Such perennial patterns offer recognition that through stillness and equally through chaos as well as through death, new life emerges. There is no quarantining of spring.

I humbly write in gratitude as a member of a Coyote Chaplaincy from Harvard Divinity School. I write as a graduate student in public health, an employee of a medical school, the son of a health care provider. I write as a distant relative, a friend, a neighbor, a community member. I write awaiting the opportunity to warmly embrace a new friend, such as yourself. I write in hope. I write in praise, for you are beyond worthy of it.

With blessings and warmth,

Adam Meier