Today is the one year anniversary of the last day I was in Manhattan. I know this because I posted a few blogs documenting my creeping realization of the pandemic that would engulf us and the world.
My lock down started on March 16 and my activities until then were without a care. However, March 4, 2020 was the last day I visited clients in Manhattan. March 3, was the last day I taught a class in a school building and March 15 was the last day I ate in a restaurant. Now, my concerns are about when we are getting the second shot and my friends’ reactions to their second shots.
Yesterday morning I spoke to a client whose wife died waiting for it to be “safe” to travel from Florida to New York to have an “optional” heart operation that not having it proved fatal. He is planning a trip back to New York in May and then later on in the summer to Europe to visit family. Some normalcy is returning, but not enough and not quick enough. Further, over 500,000 Americans have died from COVID but his wife did also but doesn’t count in that number since she did not have the Coronavirus.
Things have changed big time, and relationships are different and business for those that did not close is as usual just that there is a different usual. Those with jobs and businesses seem to have adapted and some are doing quite well. Anyone working in any manner, I think, is much better off than the many who are not, and who want to. It is those that the government stimulus programs should target more directly, but do not seem to be doing.
I’ve been locked in my house for a year and really do not engage in person with anyone except occasionally when shopping and then everyone is wearing a mask and looking away to mind their own business. The phone and virtual meetings are my way of engagement and I’ve stepped that up and accelerated these activities so I could maintain contact with people even though there is no “touching.”
We need to do the best we can. We need to look at the good sides of things and try to overlook the bad. We need to be in contact more than was usual by phone and virtually. We need to keep in touch and hopefully, in a few months, we will be able to touch each other.
If you have any tax, business or financial issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].
Read More of the Partners’ Network Blog
