I am forever 12.

Thank you, love.

Vaccines are necessary. They are essential to not only personal health but society at large. The research and development of medicine are crucial to our health and safety. We need to fight to keep our medicines affordable, available, and information about illnesses public. (/9 fin)

A 2019 paper talked about how measles can create a process called immune amnesia. Essentially creating a hard reset to your immune system and making the infected person vulnerable to secondary infection, like pneumonia. We are still trying to find out about the long term effects of COVID19. (/8)

So. Why am I bringing this up. Again. Many have not seen the lasting effects that these illnesses, which can be avoided/mitigated with vaccines, and understand how deadly these really are. And we are *still* finding out just how much damage they can do. (/7)

My parents made it a point to go visit many of the family, in TX, in TN, in KY. Since they were unable to come out to us in CA. the relative with polio was bedridden from the time I could remember, a hospital bed in the living area, tended to by her very frail husband. (/6)

I never knew how she had been after she "recovered" (do you ever, though?), as I was born when he was in his 40s, and many of the family were much older. When we would visit gramma and step grandfather, that was when we would see the family in those brief windows. (/5)

So to say he saw a lot of childhood illnesses, both from home and overseas when he served in the Pacific Theater WW2 and in Korea, is an understatement. Our family was not spared from the tentacles of horror: a relative of my dad's (cousin?aunt?) was infected by polio (/4)

Combination of global economic hardship + farming + family dynamics = massive issues. Dad only reached 5'3", had to get dentures in his 20s due to malnourishment. But that's an aside. (/3)

Those times were hard and got much harder. The family grew cotton. Some other things but the cash crop was cotton. What went on the table was mostly grown on that soil as well. Dad traveled to family farm to family farm, helping where he could. (/2)

Given that there is an attempt to eradicate the department of education, not here and not well. ;(

But. The poetry. :/