Thanks Kris,
The first sentence about the date and history of the poem was included in what
I got to me and was passed on. I should have clarified. However, the poem
deserves to be motivation to the current times, anyway. Kitty O’Meara, be her
the author, deserves the credit! But the Great Influenza did spread across the
globe through 1919. Actually, my birth grandmother died from it in early 1920
when my mother was 6 months old. Paul
Paul Petrich Jr
ppetrich39@xxxxxx
“In the end it is not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your
years.”…Anonymous
On Apr 9, 2020, at 1:33 PM, Kris MW <mainlandwhite@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
HI Paul,
Thank you always for your shares and the sharing intention you have for use
CINC folk.
As an educational technologist by trade, something about this made me wonder.
I've certainly been caught on this before, but anyhow, I checked Snopes and
below is what they said.
Just wanted you to know. Snopes is my friend. :-)
Kris
This poem was not written by someone named Kathleen O’Mara in 1869 and then
reprinted in 1919. (Side note: The “Spanish Flu” pandemic is referred to on
the CDC website
<https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html> as the
“1918 pandemic,” not the “1919 pandemic.”) This text is actually a modern-day
poem written during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic by author
Catherine M. O’Meara.
O’Meara posted this poem to her blog The Daily Round
<https://the-daily-round.com/2020/03/16/in-the-time-of-pandemic/> on March
16, 2020. The poem went viral, racking up thousands of shares as it
circulated on social media. On March 19, Oprah Magazine
<https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a31747557/and-the-people-stayed-home-poem-kitty-omeara-interview/>
dubbed O’Meara, a former teacher in Madison, Wisconsin, the “poet laureate
of the pandemic,” writing:
Kitty O’Meara is the poet laureate of the pandemic. Her untitled prose poem,
which begins with the line, “And the people stayed home,” has been shared
countless times, on countless backgrounds, with countless fonts, since its
first posting. It was most widely popularized by Deepak Chopra, and has since
been shared by everyone from Bella Hadid to radio stations in Australia. The
poem has become shorthand for a silver-linings perspective during the
coronavirus outbreak — the hope that something good can come out of this
collective state of “together, apart.”
On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 1:19 PM Paul Petrich <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Paul Petrich Jr
ppetrich39@xxxxxx <mailto:ppetrich39@xxxxxx>
“In the end it is not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in
your years.”…Anonymous
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Poem for the Ages!
Date: April 9, 2020 at 1:15:01 PM PDT
History repeats itself. This poem was written in 1869 during a cholera
epidemic, reprinted during 1919 Influenza Pandemic.
This is Timeless....
It was written in 1869 by Kathleen O’Mara:
And people stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And stopped and listened
More deeply
Someone meditated, someone prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think differently
And people healed.
And in the absence of people who
Lived in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the earth
Just as they were healed.
Reprinted during Spanish flu
Pandemic, 1919
