Originally printed in the October 2020 issue of Produce Business.

Which is better?
To live with the threat of an earthquake…
Or a hurricane?
I’ve always come down
On the side of hurricanes.

It is not that they damage less;
They might damage more.
With hurricanes, though,
You always have a warning.
You can get out of the way.
You know they are coming.

There was one year,
When my children were small,
And we had many hurricanes.
They would hear the radio,
And I had to chastise the boys…
Warn them not to celebrate.
The coming of a hurricane
Meant lives could be lost
And property destroyed.
To them, in that year,
It just meant we’d flee to Disney World!

When I think about it now,
I start to think differently.
I saw the situation through my own lens.
I could leave because I was the boss.
I had cars. Airplane tickets. Money for hotels.
Maybe notification doesn’t matter
If you have no way to go.
COVID was like an earthquake. Unexpected.
It has become like a hurricane;
It unrolls across society.
But it is everywhere,
And there is nowhere to go.
Except the stock market.
But is that real?
Or just the last refuge for money,
When interest is zero?

Those boys I once protected from the storm,
Are now in it.
Wearing masks, doing school remotely.
It is painful for a father.
But, maybe, better for the boys
To learn there can be pain in life.
That resourcefulness is needed.
Maybe success is more likely
If one goes through the storm
Rather than avoid it.