Believe me when I say I totally understand, not just in my own personal experiences but there isn't many I know that haven't announced deaths of loved ones and friends. It's not just even that alone, it's families and friends torn apart over the issue(s) and I think a lot of that can be explained in this post, people aren't making the connection because of the time lapse involved with some deaths.
I've yet to see one family picnic gathering this year at the park across the street. I've seen a couple of times it looked like someone celebrated a child's birthday over there but outside of that it hasn't been this quiet around here in over a decade. Even the college houses around me have changed, there isn't ten, fifteen kids crammed up into a house.
I think for a large part of that it is that more people than we know have experienced loss in the last two years and it's weighing heavy on the decisions that they make, minimizing the risk factors.
I just got back from driving up into the woods to watch the Perseid meteors and there were hundreds of people camping tonite. I've never actually seen so many campers on the mountain before. Sadly it is overcast, and when it started raining I gave up hoping for shooting stars.
Maybe people are just getting further away from things to have picnics?
I happen to have took note of it because my one son and his girlfriend live in an apartment complex with a swimming pool, a grill area with a gas firepit. We changed up plans a couple of times due to the fact the weatherman would say one thing but nothing ever ended up happening and we'd find ourselves saying we didn't need to switch up days.
It's really weird though how fast shit can happen. They pay through the nose to live there but it's a nice apartment complex and the pool area isn't even that crowded. With how things have changed around here, the quiet and being able to gather over there it was the most beautiful summer, almost to good to be true, never seen us so close and happy than the nightmare struck. Of course there's always the nightmare, never fails. Totally destroyed everything and it could be months, maybe a year or more before, if ever, things get back to normal. It was just to good to be true. I now sit wondering if my oldest son will ever be the same again after his break down in 2020. I really wish I knew what happened with him.
I sincerely empathize with your concern for your family. I hope you are soon able to be sure all is better than you could have imagined with your loved ones.
I had to have my son hospitalized again. There was some hope when the psychologist said if he'd stayed on his medication for two years the chances of a relapse would have been more unlikely. So I guess there is still hope left, it's a matter of convincing him of that after his release.
Funny you should mention that. I was just telling someone a couple weeks ago that I thought the weather people were trying to keep people away from going camping because it's probably got quite crowded since people are looking for things that they can do outdoors. Seems like every weekend they'd forecast a wash out rain event than nothing would happen. Pre covid they'd say it was going to be sunny and beautiful and people would be caught up in some severe storms. I did a humorous blog on it once when the weatherman forecasted a tremendous weekend for camping than went out of town to visit his mom, meanwhile the people who did go camping found themselves running across the parking lot for theirs lives as severe storms blew their tents right off the campgrounds.