COLUMN: 'If We Make It Through December'

'If we make it through December, everything's gonna be alright I know. It's the coldest time of winter, and I shiver when I see the falling snow."

- Merle Haggard, 1973

TUSCALOOSA, AL. — I was on a self-imposed newspaper assignment at a community hospital in Mississippi in June, touring the facility amid a raging pandemic and provided an up-close look at a scene that, at the time, was still new in our minds. Hospitalizations across the country had just started to rise at an alarming rate and I vividly recall the knot in my gut over what to expect as we crossed the threshold into a new kind of unit solely dedicated for critical care of coronavirus patients.

All of the half dozen or so rooms were occupied and my heart broke into pieces at one point as I stood flat-footed and speechless on the other side of a Plexiglas partition, watching as a mentally ill man infected with the virus sat upright in one of those hard leather hospital recliners — the kind in every hospital that are impossible to sleep in when staying overnight with a loved one. Wearing nothing but a thin, backless hospital gown and resting his chin on a pair of pale knees pulled up to his chest, he rocked back and forth wide-eyed in his quarantine space, unaware of his critical condition, much less of the chaos unfolding around him.

The ungovernable terror on that man's face is forever burned into my memory. I've squalled like a child about it more times than I can count and for a while, I thought that isolated moment in the pandemic was going to be the lowest point for me, for nothing more than how helpless the entire situation felt.

But as we slogged on through the summer surge and subsequent lull with the change of the seasons, I took a new job and moved back home to Tuscaloosa. Still, a fear stuck in my heart that the public health experts I personally know would be right ... the fall and winter would be far worse than anything I had seen to that point.

In recent weeks and especially over the last few days, coronavirus hospitalizations have surged across the country. DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa reported 89 total inpatients on Tuesday — 52 of whom came in the span of the last three days. At the same time, the state of Alabama broke its single-day record for coronavirus hospitalizations and there seems to be no end in sight as experts across the board warn of another inevitable spike in the next couple of weeks due to gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday.

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As every single day brings more stories of sickness, death, financial hardship and social division, I'm reminded of an old country song written by Merle Haggard that could have been penned in 2020 — "If We Make It Through December."

This sad Christmas honky-tonk tune tells the story of a downtrodden, but hopeful father who laments his recent unemployment, along with the bitter cold and holiday expectations brought by the month of December. It's important to note that the songwriter was a child of the Dust Bowl and no stranger to hard times, but the message still resonates with respect to the basic feelings many of us are experiencing in the present.

"I don't mean to hate December. It's meant to be the happy time of year. And my little girl don't understand, why Daddy can't afford no Christmas here."

Few among us have managed to avoid being personally impacted by the pandemic, be it employment, health, emotional strain or all of the above. I personally know people who have lost dream jobs and livelihoods as a result of the economic downturn. I know people who have lost valuable time and experiences after getting sick. And in the last couple of months, I've seen friends bury parents and have known more people who have lost their lives due to a singular event than at any other time in my life.

Indeed, at least for me, the situation is much darker at present than when we grappled with the summer surge.

Now, after a week of giving thanks, we are barreling headlong into what could be the most devastating chapter of the pandemic yet, at a time when many will be too financially strapped to make rent, much less shower their children with presents concealed in expensive wrapping paper.

Even as I write this column, I have a loved one who was just admitted to DCH for issues thankfully not related to the coronavirus. This elderly family member has followed the rules, stayed at home and has thus far avoided the virus. But just the sheer act of going out anymore for high-risk individuals is obviously more dangerous now than it has been at any other point since this began due to the high rate of spreading as "COVID fatigue" sets in and many people voluntarily ignore public health guidelines designed to protect them and others.

The last thing anyone wants for Christmas is to lose a loved one to this virus. But as the situation rapidly deteriorates across the country and at home, there will no doubt be scores of empty chairs when the holidays are observed later this month. It may be a time of celebration for some, but it will be holiday of lonely retrospection for many others.

I don't have an answer, either, and am not here to advocate for the tightening or easing of any public health guidelines. After all, I have a communications degree, not one in public health or medicine. But I will say I don't want to see our businesses shut down again, because the masses are struggling as it is with little hope of a rescue plan from the highest levels to provide relief for those forced to shutter their doors to help mitigate the spread of the virus.

I also don't envy the position of our local hospital administrators, elected officials and others in charge of making decisions right now, because each new directive or pivot comes with its own built-in set of downsides. Shut the businesses down and put people out of work right before the holidays or keep the businesses open and face the inevitable uptick in cases like we are expecting to see in the coming weeks.

Hope is a funny thing, though. It's one of the few feelings you can cling tight to even though you may have absolutely no tangible or concrete reason to believe in it in the first place. As a result, I keep catching myself and others saying "when all of this is over ... "

The plans and expectations are always grand, shining bright in their optimism for better days to come and holding out for a time when we can hug our grandparents, yell at concerts and fill football stadiums.

Right now, I worry that hope has just about waned for many and I'd be lying if I said I didn't wake up most days feeling the same way. But one of the reasons I love the aforementioned Merle Haggard song so much is that, in spite of all of its heart-worn sorrow, the narrator leaves the listener with his intentions to battle through the cold and make it out better on the other side, regardless of the situation at hand.

"If we make it through December, got plans to be in a warmer town come summertime. Maybe even California. If we make it through December, we'll be fine."

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and columnist. He is currently the community publisher of Tuscaloosa Patch and the views expressed in this opinion column are his and not necessarily reflective of the views of our parent company.

This article originally appeared on the Tuscaloosa Patch