COVID-19 Hurts Hearts

COVID-19 has proved a testing disease that has torn the hearts out of communities worldwide.  There have been wide discrepancies in suffering. Not only in the degree of loss and pain but also in how we respond to this pandemic.  Those doctors and nurses who have seen the virus up close, as in Italy for example, have had to make decisions about who will live and who will die due to a shortage of ventilators.  Elderly and those with immune-compromised systems have been isolated at moments when fear and vulnerability is at its height.  If hospitalized with COVID their loved ones could well not see them again.  Sometimes we do lose the people we love.  It is hard to cope with at the best of times but it is compounded by not being able to be with them as they face death.  Not being able to hold a hand, stroke a brow or whisper words of love it feels a betrayal of seismic proportions.  Even those in the medical world who watch them die, despite all their efforts, the anguish is causing mental strain whose impact will continue in the months or years ahead. 

But whether you have lost a loved one or been treating a dying patient another unbearable anguish is added by those who have experienced neither and speak in tones of hurtful ignorance about what is happening. Misinformation and distortion of facts have compounded an already serious situation.  Especially when used for political or personal agendas rather than the public good. I have been shocked by how hurtful it is to read nonsense in such dire circumstances. 

One understands that since different parts of the world are experiencing different degrees of suffering it is only natural that portions of the human population has remained untouched and are perplexed at all the fuss.   Those who now have no sources of income and are facing poverty and hunger need to be understood and heard in these critical times.    What I cannot understand is the unwillingness to search for truth but to cherry-pick whatever point of view that suits a particular agenda. Never in my life have I blocked so many online friends and family due to them posting dismissive messages about COVID being a hoax, a fantasy.  Having seen the effect of COVID up close I cannot stomach their strange ability to ignore the suffering of so many.  It crosses a line that I never thought would be breached.

I sense we are looking at different worlds and coming to alternative truths.  On one level I know logically that it won’t be until years later will we be able to see clearly what was done right and what were complete mistakes. It is far too early to call such nuances now.  But surely in the face of such suffering, it is the barefaced lack of compassion and humility exhibited that brings gut-wrenching despair.  To all those who have suffered, are suffering or will suffer may you encounter kindness and compassion in these strange days. Meanwhile, may all of us summon up enough courage and patience to be of service to those in need. 

Living in the dark, ugly beyond words but resilient

The naked mole-rat is the size of a mouse and is, one has to admit exceptionally ugly. It is a eusocial animal.  This term describes creatures who live in large colonies with a single breeding female who keeps her subordinates sexually immature. These rats are found in the hot arid regions of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia and live in dark underground tunnels their entire lives. 

They have a dreadful sort of caste system with ‘infrequent workers’ who have considerably larger bodyweight than the ‘frequent workers’. Frequent workers as well as being smaller do twice as much work as infrequent workers. Then, there is a further category ‘the non-workers’ who are the largest mole rats in the colony, bar the Queen. The non-worker group, true to their name, hardly ever dig or transport material. Their role is partly reproductive as they mate with the breeding queen but they also take care of the young. 

The frequent workers are so busy digging and transporting soil and carrying food to the communal nest that they have barely enough time to eat. In fact, as a result, the naked mole-rat has a metabolism that resembles that of an animal on a calorie-restricted diet. This kind of diet is associated with longevity and indeed one of its surprising characteristics is its unusually long lifespan.

Rodents, such as mice of a similar size, rarely last beyond 4 or 5 years but these naked mole-rats live over three decades and are still healthy and fertile in their 30s.  In fact, they actually don’t appear to age at all. Their heart functions, bone density, muscle mass and metabolism all stay healthy despite the passing decades. They have in addition, exceptional resistance to developing cancer. Having observed large numbers of naked mole-rat colonies over many years we have been hard put to find any instances of cancer. No wonder then, the biology of the naked mole-rat is generating an unusual amount of interest in the fight against cancer in humans.

These animals live in stifling tunnels in complete darkness with very low oxygen levels. They dig in soil rich in toxic heavy metals and they eat poisonous tubers and suffer no adverse consequences. But this is the least of their special skills. When their cells are exposed to UV light they suffer no consequences. Even high doses of chemotherapy drugs have no effect on these tough guys. Such resistance to toxins is probably related to why they don’t age. The trick seems to be they have learnt to cope with exceptional levels of cellular damage from a very young age. Instead of avoiding such damage, they have cultivated an unusual ability to stop damaged cells from dividing and multiplying. They put their focus on preventing the multiplication of mutant cells.

They are creatures of the dark who tend to eat their own shit at times. They live in oxygen-deprived stuffy tunnels.  In fact, these guys can survive for five hours in air that contains only 5% oxygen. Perversely, during that oxygen-deprived time, they don’t show any significant signs of distress and continue with their normal activities. Consuming poison and surrounded by toxins these guys stay ever young. They literally are, as tough as old boots. They may look weird but you’ve got to admire their tenacity. The naked mole-rat can even survive 18 minutes without any oxygen at all. It has to be the real definition of a tough guy.

We have a lot to learn from the naked mole-rat. They cope with dark days and their skin does not feel pain.  For humans our risk of dying doubles every eight years after the age of 40. The naked mole-rat experiences no increased risk of dying with age. They may look repulsive but in some ways, they are real superheroes!

At a time, when we are living through difficult days watching humanity suffer from the Covid 19 virus many of us will have to draw on our own resilience and toughness.  Holding our breath at the loss of life and suffering unfolding.  Finding superheroes, in our communities who fight to preserve life in dark and scary days.

These difficult days will pass and all we will remember is how we responded to such tests

 Dear Son,

You asked me some questions last night that really made me think. I’m not sure of the answers but I wanted you to know what I think and why. Then, at least you can make your own decisions in the light of that. Please don’t see this as advice. I wouldn’t presume. But I do care too deeply for you not to respond when you ask.

People do take advantage of other's kindness. Sometimes through thoughtlessness, sometimes because of their own agenda and occasionally because they’re not used to it. Every time it hurts. Especially when you do something in a spirit of kindness and others respond with disdain or just more expectations. They can even respond with anger as if you offered them a smack instead of the hand of friendship. Life is too short to examine all these responses and to understand the why of it. Better by far to move on.

If you are pulling people out of a bad place keep going. Don’t stop to argue with someone who resents that you did them a good turn. Whether they feel small, embarrassed, self-preoccupied, angry or frustrated is neither here nor there. If you did good, it is because it is in you to do so. Don’t expect it in others. They may not have it in their own lives and so cannot give it to others.

Life passes so quickly and good nature can easily be broken on the backs of mean spirits. So, don’t linger. Don’t be taken advantage of, just move on. Everyone you meet will teach you something, if only not to past too near again!

Then there are the tyrants. Those twisted so much that your kindness is not just wasted on them it is bad for them. Kindness to such types empowers and enables them to do even more damage. We have a responsibility not to reward their acts of abuse because the next one they torment needs you to stand firm. You must have the courage, in such circumstances, to hold the line like the 300 Spartans of old. You do this not out of dislike of them but because you know that giving in to a tyrant will merely perpetuate the abuse. At such times I think of all the victims of abuse I have known. Do you remember young George flinching at our table from the sound of a banging van door? In the face of such abuse, I steel myself to screw up my courage within me. What can we do? We are nothing really but, whatever it is we are capable of being at that moment, we must strive to be that. Because on the backs of tiny pebbles the great sea waves crash! We are such pebbles and despite the power of the waves, we remain. Know that long after they have smashed and raged and broken we will remain. We were created to bear and endure. Let them do their worst because we need to focus on doing our very best.

Let’s not be distracted by their activities. We have deeds to do, mighty deeds. Time is short, too short. Life passes by so quickly and the only things we will remember are all those who we love or who loved us. Grab such souls to you. Remember their sweetness and steady your stance. The hordes are coming. Stand fast, dear heart. There is no one I’d rather have at my side in the face of injustice. You have a keen poet’s eye and see to the real heart of things. Trust in such vision, believe the courage that lies within and search for truth always.

These difficult days will pass and all we will remember is how we responded to such tests.  That will be either our lasting regret or our legacy.  Know the importance of such choices.

Thanks for asking, for talking and for being you.

The piece of bread that transformed two lives - an unsung Maltese hero

Small deeds can lead to big results. Victor Mizzi ran a scout group in Malta in the 1950s. He went on to run his own very successful business, but even when he was helping out with the scouts he showed signs of enterprise and determination. He once contacted Lord Mountbatten, then Admiral of the British Fleet, and arranged for a group of 300 scouts from Malta to travel to the UK by warship. No mean feat to achieve!

He went to school at Jesuit Saint Aloysius College in Birkirkara.  He later started his own charter company Belleair holidays in 1974 and was highly successful. In fact, he was so successful that he made enough money to retire before the age of 50. Something I have heard so many dream of doing but never quite manage.

When the Chernobyl disaster happened Victor became aware of the shortages of supplies afflicting hospitals and orphanages in Belarus. 70% of the radiation fallout landed in Belarus and it impacted 2.5 million people with health consequences in an area that was already very depressed economically and suffering from crippling poverty. The result of the radiation was a huge increase in thyroid cancers and many children were born with malformed limbs or even multiple congenital deformities.  It is thought that 250,000 children were exposed to varying degrees of radiation in Belarus. 

Showing his usual terrier type tenacity Victor Mizzi continued to offer medicine and supplies to as many hospitals and orphanages in Belarus as he could. It was while he was visiting one of the orphanages that an incident happened which changed the course of his life. While in the orphanage a small three-year-old boy called Igor Pavlovetts, who had been born badly deformed, toddled over and offered the Maltese businessman a piece of bread. 

It was an unexpected act of kindness that led to a transformation. Victor was so touched by the small child that he arranged for him to be flown to the UK to receive medical treatment. While Igor was in the UK, Victor arranged for him to stay in a foster home. Following extensive physiotherapy and support, Igor grew in confidence and ability. 

Mind you, some of the artificial limbs and aids used for the disabled were pretty crude in those days and nothing like the state-of-the-art technology available today.  An old film of Igor's life shows his devastation when his "new legs" turned out to be just huge black crude boots with six-inch soles on them. The small child had obviously been expecting more natural-looking and more comfortable legs. But Igor's natural optimism and resilience shine through as he smiles at everyone around him despite his disappointment. Igor went on to have an independent life in the UK and has since married and had three children of his own.

Such an injection of generosity from Victor Mizzi could have ended with this one life being transformed. However, Victor was only getting started. Realising that so many children in Belarus were suffering ill-health as a result of the radiation, he started a scheme to allow Belarus children to travel abroad for 3 to 4 weeks so that their systems could recover in healthier climes. In time he would arrange for 56,000 children to have holidays outside Belarus and their immune systems benefited enormously from these breaks.  Such were his powers of persuasion that he even convinced British Airways, Belavia and Ukraine International Airlines to give all the children involved free travel to these destinations.  The charity he started so many years ago still runs today and has touched so many young lives.

So often in life, we miss these tiny but significant acts of kindness. Surrounded by the corruption and competition we might not even see the outstretched hand of a small child offering us bread. Even if we noticed it and felt a wave of sympathy for this tiny disabled child how many of us would have just moved on.  It took just one man, Victor Mizzi to see the boy, feel compassion and then arise to act, to make all the difference. That one act triggered an avalanche of endeavours that continue to influence children’s health in Belarus to this day.

 

Victor and Igor in the early years

Victor Mizzi passed away aged 84 in the UK in March 2019 and in the week before his death was visited by a journalist who recalled Victor saying to them “Always help others, when you have a chance.”

"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity."

Baha’u’llah

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

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Deeper than happiness, joy springs from mysterious sources. Not sudden rain bursts of glee. Nor mere gladness because of calm waters. It is fuelled instead from clean, deep unpolluted wells that are blemish-free. That run with cleansing channels to fertile lands. Growing deeds as crops. Its unseen abundance is fenced by detachment. Joy bubbles up despite hardship, often due to hard lessons learnt. The deeper the plough cuts the greater the harvest.

Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) the ancient stoic philosopher was sentenced to commit suicide by the emperor Caligula, who resented Seneca’s eloquence in the Senate. Seneca only survived because he was seriously ill and Caligula thought that he would soon die anyway.  The next emperor Claudius exiled Seneca for many years to the island of Corsica.  Nero, the subsequent emperor, was tutored in his childhood by Seneca but later turned on his old tutor and sentenced him to death.  Seneca had certainly experienced the hardships that tribulations bring.  He would have agreed with the words of Epictetus, a later stoic who urged vigilance in life by pointing out:

“It’s much easier for a mariner to wreck his ship than it is for him to keep it sailing safely; all he has to do is head a little more upwind and disaster is instantaneous. In fact, he does not have to do anything: A momentary loss of attention will produce the same result.”

Seneca, much earlier in his life, had already spoken to others on misfortune.  He had pointed out that one should not see apparent misfortunes as genuinely bad. He lectured that in some ways they should be welcomed as they can benefit us. He felt that a good person should treat all adversity as a training exercise.  In fact, he drew an analogy with a wrestler who only benefits from taking on tough opponents and who would gradually lose his skill if he only ever faced weaker challengers. Seneca felt that we only show our own skills when we face a real adversary.  Adversity, he felt, works in a similar way: it lets us display our virtues and it trains them so that we can improve. He suggested that adversity should be welcomed when it came. In a similar vein, he pointed out that a general will only send his best soldiers into the most difficult battles. He felt that God will send the toughest challenges only to the most worthy individuals. Experiencing adversity then is a mark of having a virtuous character. He asked the question that if we are never tested would we ever develop virtues of patience courage and resilience? Seneca pointed out that unlimited luxury and wealth would serve to make a person lazy, complacent, ungrateful and greedy for more.

After a lifetime of giving lectures on detachment he consoled his companions as his own painful death was endured. He reminded his listeners of Socrates’ (470 BC – 399 BC) approach to death. If life was so valuable, he pointed out, why would Socrates, the greatest philosopher, treat it with such dismissal. Socrates had been occupied with the search for moral virtues and was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock.  Socrates' fearless humour was demonstrated when during his trial he was asked what his punishment should be and responded that a wage from the government and free dinners for the rest of his life would suffice!

It’s not that life is unimportant but to live an uninvested life seems the worst torment. If unexpected death can be viewed as a kindly gardener moving a tender plant to a more fertile land then a waste of life can both be likened to a worthless weed. A weed that has grown out of sight of the gardener’s care, strangling younger seedlings and denying them light or substance. Such weeds will gain their recompense at the final harvest. But what gardener does not despair at their wanton destruction. The question then remains how do we flourish and progress fully in life?

Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 AD), a stoic emperor wrote with insight;

“Make a habit of regularly observing the universal process of change; be insidious in your attention to it, and school yourself thoroughly in this branch of study; there is nothing more elevating to the mind. For when a man realizes that at any moment he may have to leave everything behind him and part from the company of his fellows, he casts off the body and thenceforward dedicates himself wholly to the service of justice in his personal actions and compliance with Nature in all else. No thought is wasted on what others may say or think of him or practise against him; two things alone suffice him, justice in his daily dealings and contentment with all fate’s apportionings.”

So sometimes when hardship or loss strikes, the lessons it brings can prune and strengthen growth.  But if we instead, flower with easy abundance, grow in wealth and glory while seeing others around us wither and suffer then, perhaps the Divine Gardener does not transplant with love but views us with startled disdain.

All that growth and show, just wasted space. If our good deeds here plant seeds in the next world, what scene of devastation awaits those who have abused and brought destruction to others. Better by far to face atonement here than face the divine Gardner with no penance paid, full of selfish satisfaction and a wasted, wasteful life to offer. While others roughly treated here may find more forgiving climes and receive tender divine care from the source of love.

Marcus Aurelius had clear opinions on what we should and should not fear in this life.  It is surprising but to the point.

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“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”