Happy New Year!!!

Dear Readers,

Happy New Year! I am writing this blog on New Year’s Eve 2020!

Early this morning my dear friend Mary called  to tell me she had just read a quotation  on hope. The quotation by an unknown author read, “When the world says, ‘Give up,’  hope says ‘Try one more time.'”

I had never read that quotation. I love it.

As we eagerly await the new vaccine against the Coronavirus which hopefully will end our current  pandemic, I have been thinking of other vaccines. We know that in 1775 Edward Jenner created the first vaccine, a vaccine that revolutionized the world–the smallpox vaccine. In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk  created the vaccine against polio. It took Dr. Salk 2 and a half years of continuous work to create the first polio vaccine.

How many times did Edward Jenner fail before he succeeded? How many times did Dr. Salk feel he was at the end of his search for a vaccine and discover he had to try one more time to succeed?

I know from personal experience how crucial the polio vaccine was. When I was 9 months old, I contacted polio. For 5 days I fought for my life. On the sixth day, I made a turn for the better and I emerged from that terrible disease.

In 1955, I took the Salk vaccine even though I had survived the non-paralytic version of polio. There were 2 other types of polio–the paralytic and the bulbar kind of polio and Dr. Salk’s vaccine gave children like me protection from all three kinds of polio!

I have often wondered what would have happened if Dr. Salk had given up before he succeeded, Thank goodness he did not.

Each of us has an opportunity to keep on trying. We have the chance and the choice to keep on or to give up. In an earlier blog I mentioned how my mother used to encourage everyone around her by quoting her favorite aphorism, “When the going  gets tough, the tough get going!”

Thank you, Dr. Jenner. Thank you, Dr. Salk. Thank you current day researchers who have created versions of our new Coronavirus vaccines! Most of all, thank You, Dear Lord, for creating the spirit of dedication and unrelenting hope that keeps these wonderful scientists trying until they succeed! May the rest of us be inspired by them as we approach the New Year and the new challenges and opportunities 2021 brings with it.

Happy New Year, Friends!

See you next year!!

Love from your friend Hope