Thomas Grady: What will I tell my grandchildren?

Our Creation

What am I going to tell my Grandchildren about when I am older? What part of history will I live through? What happens if war breaks out? Will I be drafted?

These were my questions before 2020. War was pondered in the beginning. Then a pandemic broke out. My whole life I have thought that pandemics were things of the old ages. I believed that all diseases could be cured in a way. People believed this. Society was starting to believe that we can solve everything. The truth is we have no control of our fate. We can do our best to prevent disease, but in the end we cannot stop it.

Coronavirus has taken everyone by surprise. In January everyone was joking about it. “Someone ate a bat in China. Now people are sick. Of course, why would you eat a bat? Why should a disease thousands of miles away affect us. It is a whole ocean away from us. Not our problem.” I believe that many people had this exact thought process on the situation. I know I did, but that was soon to change.

The Coronavirus pandemic has taught me many things. I have always had the idea that what they say on the news will not affect our daily lives, the central government and President have no effect on our daily lives. I believed this to be true until I was forced to not leave my home until this strange virus was gone.

Not being able to go hang out with your friends and go to public places sounds bad, but I have come to the conclusion that it is not as bad as it seems, for a true North Carolinian at least. Growing up in North Carolina, one of the first things I ever did was learn to hunt and fish. During this time of quarantine I have done just this. I have gotten up at the crack of dawn to shoot turkeys, paddled down the Contentnea Creek in search of largemouth bass, caught trout in numbers like never before, and escaped to the gulf stream in search of Pelagic species. There is no virus in the woods, on a creek, or 70 miles in the ocean.

I believe that everything in life has a reason. God does not want everyone looking at their phones all day. He wants us to go out and see his creation, Mother Nature. So many people are locked up in their houses. Go explore. The best place to social distance is in nature, away from the virus, away from your everyday struggles.

So what will I tell my grandchildren? I know exactly what I will tell them. The Coronavirus pandemic was a break. The world was going too fast. Everyone was going so fast they didn’t have time to notice the little things. We were starting to live in a reality where nature was almost nonexistent. Everyone looked at a phone. Kids did not learn to play outside. During the “break” people started to realize things. We need fresh air. Fun is not staying locked up inside a house. Fun is going outside and seeing the creation we are supposed to see. Not the fake creation on a screen, God’s Creation.