It doesn鈥檛 seem that masks are going anywhere. I know that one day, we won鈥檛 wear one every time we leave the car, but that鈥檚 not right now.
There have been several times when I pulled into my driveway and hooked my mask over both ears before realizing that I didn鈥檛 need to wear a mask to enter my own home.
Over the past year, it has developed into a normal practice, and it鈥檚 something we are going to be doing for the foreseeable future.
I often think back to the first memorable time I saw someone wear a mask in daily life.
I was in the fourth grade and there was a girl at my school who was a couple of years older than me, called Julie, who was from China.
During the winter months, there would be times when she would wear a cloth face mask to school. It wasn鈥檛 often or consistent, but it would happen a few times over the year, when she would wear a mask for a few days in a row. I would see her at recess, lunch and after school wearing her mask.
Wearing a mask wasn鈥檛 common, and I remember being curious about it.
One day, I went up and asked her why she was wearing a mask and she told me that it was because she had a cold and her parents said she had to wear it.
I remember thinking, in my 10-year-old mind, how awful it was to have parents who made you wear a mask to school. I thought it must have been so embarrassing. I also remember wondering why she didn鈥檛 just wear it in front of her parents, then take it off when she got to school.
These were all thoughts in my child mind, and clearly now, I have a better understanding. As a parent, I hope my child honours my wishes when I am not around.
Ever since this pandemic hit, I have often thought of Julie. I don鈥檛 even remember her last name, but I do remember she used to wear puffy, yellow tennis shoes.
Now I realize why Julie wore the mask. She wore it to protect all of the other kids from catching her illness. I bet it wasn鈥檛 easy for her to wear a mask to an elementary school of curious kids who had no idea why she was wearing it.
I am sure she received a lot of annoying questions, like mine, and probably got picked on because of it, too.
I wonder if Julie remembers that time and feels validated, knowing that all the kids who pestered her out of curiosity, or worse, are wearing masks now, and asking their kids to wear masks to school.
I have seen articles over the past year talking about how face masks aren鈥檛 new and other cultures and countries have been utilizing them for decades.
I am intrigued by photos taken during the Spanish flu pandemic, where everyone is wearing masks. It鈥檚 pretty interesting that with all of the technology we have, one of our best methods of protection was also the go-to 100 years ago.
We have all learned to condition ourselves to mask-wearing, but others, like Julie from my elementary school, have been practising it out of respect for others for decades.
