Primary school drop off was a ghost town on Friday morning. So was the toilet paper aisle.

But I would rather the ghost towns be in driveways and aisle-ways than in the hallways of our homes and the alleyways of our hearts.

These are scary times. Every day we hear of more infections, more hospitalizations. The friend two doors down, the principal one county over, the young mother with two sweet littles. The dozens waiting confirmation. The hundreds hosting symptoms.

Every time we check our social media — which is all we can do since this social distancing has been implemented — we see more scary things. Read more scary things.

But perhaps the scariest of all is the vicious political finger-pointing. This virus is targeting us all. Let’s not target each other.

In the past, I’ve been the first to rail against the machine and wag my finger and tongue. But right now, the most important thing for us to do is find our humanity and discard our hate.

We need to band together on our bandwidths, not launch hatred from our laptops.

Italy should be a lesson to us all. How to quarantine, yes. But also, how to love. How to carry on loving one another despite social distancing. In Italy, they’re singing from balconies. Serenading from rooftops.

And we… we can do the same. From our keyboards.

Spread kindness and love via laptop and phone. Share all the puppy pics, the family snapshots, the prayers, the love. Whisper sweet nothings into your friends’ and loved ones’ virtual ears.

Because right now, they are far from nothing. Right now, they’re everything. Because we are running woefully low on Sweetness right now.

My oldest twin boy, five days from six years old, whispered the sweetest little nothing-that’s-everything into my ear yesterday morning.

Parker Candela, age 6(ish)

You said it Parker. And I agree.

Let’s water everyone’s eyes with beautiful things. All the kind, sweet, joyful, loving, prayerful, beautiful things.

Our heart health and humanity depends upon it.