We need not sit sipping Lysol lemonade and Clorox cocktails in the left field bleachers with Donald Trump to insist that recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is too important to be left exclusively to politicians and health care technocrats.

It’s a pandemic within a pandemic — and a damning indictment of how we’ve been failing to care for our most vulnerable. People living in seniors’ homes across Canada are being hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19.

Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a stalwart of the pro-life movement, touched many lives in different spheres, especially in education, the particular charism of the Basilian Fathers. I will remember him as a fellow priest journalist.

The question on many minds is, “When will life return to normal?” That implies another question: What is normal?

Throughout this pandemic lockdown, everyone must be going through a range of emotions at various times, from fear and anxiety to frustration and lethargy.

Given his bad-boy-again half-smile and love for re-playing clichés as humourous surprises, it’s understandable to hope word of John Prine’s death during Holy Week is a prank of cosmic timing that he okayed with God first.

In June we celebrate St. Vitus’ Day, a time that honours an unusual saint whose influence was seen throughout Europe generally and in Germany in particular.

In 2006 I was home for about a month recovering from back surgery. It was the first time in my life I was so confined. I was literally staring at all four walls … and what I saw was not pretty.

Feelings are constantly swirling in my world — in health care and in my home and in my heart. The myriad of messages coming from every direction are little help in sorting through the emotional tremors.

I have many fond memories of my Uncle Frank from Coshocton, Ohio. He was my dad’s older brother, a lifelong Republican and an elegant man.