Choices: Risk/Reward

Mongoose,
My mom works at Walmart and she takes all the precautions they say to do. She wears a mask, gloves, and she uses hand cleaner all the time. She's been stopping by my house on the way home to see her grandkids but this really bothers me. My husband says she don't need to be here but I just can't hardly tell her no. I know she has a risk of carrying coronavirus but she loves her grandkids. What do I do.

Dear Mommas at Walmart,
Like the great George Jones said (RIP) and I said to someone else recently, you have choices, what you have to decide is if the reward is worth the risk.
 
Let’s say you’re at home alone with a newborn baby, you just mixed up your last batch of formula, the nearest store is 5 miles away and its snowing.  You have a choice to make, you can let the baby go hungry or you can brave the snow and go buy some.  If those are your only two options you will (I hope) go to the store and feed that baby.  That doesn’t mean you slip on some flip flops and jump in the ’69 Camaro with a supercharged big block and racing slicks, no seatbelts or car seat and floor it to the store-- you have to make an informed decision and weigh all your options again asking yourself –is the reward worth the risk. 
 
I hate to break it to you and everyone else, but WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE someday, no matter what we do.  If you want to live, wear your seatbelt, look both ways before crossing the street and don’t jump out of an airplane without a parachute.  If the reward of you seeing your mom and your mom seeing your kids is worth the risk of you or your family possibly getting sick and your mom is wearing her seatbelt/mask, gloves, sanitizing--then stop worrying about it and give her a big hug the next time she comes over. 
 
Life is meant to be lived, the next breath any of us take could be our last, 4 months ago I don’t think we sat around worrying if it could or couldn’t be and if Dandy Andy comes on TV tomorrow and says, “go back to normal”, what has changed?  There is NO cure, there is NO vaccine, there are only good habits and good choices that can be made that will help us stay healthy and no matter what the end result for all of us is death whether its today or 50 years from now—something is going to kill you, I promise.
​--MG