Finding much to be grateful for, even during a pandemic

While we’re going through this unusual time, I find it helpful to focus on what I have, not what I am missing. I’ve made a list of everything I’m grateful for. There are more than 300 things on it, and I keep adding.

They are things from my past as well as the present. They include people, objects, services, living conditions and experiences. Every day, I try to spend three minutes thinking about one or more items on the list. It has helped me to not take my blessings for granted.

On my list are the big things — family, friends and fairly good health — as well as the less important stuff, such as parks, washing machines and paper towels.

One item on my list is to always remember how much better my life is, even in these challenging times, than it was for my recently deceased 96-year-old mother or my great-grandparents.

I ask myself whether I’d rather be alive in 2020, 1920, 1820 or earlier. The answer is easy.

Gary Jump, Itasca

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Medicare for All, now more than ever

Now more than ever we need proper health care. But with 3.2 million people filing for unemployment benefits last week — and another 6.6 million filing this week — and laid-off workers practically everywhere reporting delays in getting claims filed, people suddenly find themselves with no health insurance.

Do people who are laid off in France lose their health care? No. In Germany? No. In the United Kingdom?No.

I can just imagine how many people who objected to Medicare for All, saying they like their health insurance, realize now that when they really need it, it’s no longer there.

Lee Knohl, Evanston

Put people back to work April 30

We don’t need to spend money on “broadband, waterworks and roads” when the roads are emptying because of the lockdowns. Broadband companies are rich.

What we need is for governors to guarantee they will end the lockdowns April 30 so restaurant, small business and hospitality workers can go back to work. They threw 10 million people out of work and made them dependent on unemployment funds that will soon go broke. What then?

Norman Watkins, Edgewater