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When it comes to Facebook, I am a bit like Don Corleone and his relationship with the Cosa Nostra in the movie “.� Corleone, played brilliantly by actor Al Pacino, wanted separation, a move toward legitimacy. But he could never quite make it happen.

“Just when I thought I was out,� says Corleone, standing in his kitchen in a smart cardigan sweater, “they pull me back in.�

There I was in my kitchen Monday morning, lamenting the toxic nature of social media (as I opened it up in the morning to check in), and a Facebook memory popped up. This is, perhaps, the best aspect of that particularly social medium, a sometimes daily or weekly reminder of cherished memories.

Monday’s photo was of a day two years ago, near the beginning of the pandemic when schools first closed but before we were at each other’s throats. We were, in those early days, mostly in this together, huddled in our homes, trying to understand, doing our part.

On this day, my teenagers were playing in the backyard together. Many parents will understand the magic of that moment. I have wonderful children. I am sure they love each other. But they’re teenagers, with their own friends, their own interests and the sort of sibling rivalry that rarely involves them in the backyard together, just the two of them, hitting a volleyball back and forth, just for fun.

It was a mesmerizing moment. A beautiful instant caught on camera amid the scary and uncertain days. Little did we know then, the pandemic would continue in one difficult form or another for two years, — the equivalent of the population of Missouri.

The timing of this memory is auspicious. This week, mask mandates are, for the first time in two years, fully expired in the St. Louis region. Thanks to the unimaginably hard work of our health care heroes and the contributions of so many others who have done their part to try to limit the damage of COVID-19, the spread of the virus is slowing. Hospital admissions are manageable. The pandemic hasn’t ended; but it’s transitioning, for now, to an endemic stage, here with us perhaps forever but in a way in which most of us can get back to a sense of normalcy.

Meanwhile, the new normal is quite a bit different than the old one, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the world forever.

That’s what the Facebook memory made me think about. If teenage siblings who generally have to be forced to stand near each other in a family photo can put down their guard amid the uncertainty of a pandemic and get along, why can’t the rest of us?

Maybe we can.

Something is happening amid the new war in Europe that often has been missing during the pandemic because of politics and propaganda: The world is uniting. President Joe Biden and his cohorts in NATO countries have brought us together. Sure, there are still right-wing standouts like Tucker Carlson who work for radio and TV propaganda outlets and some Republican politicians following their lead, doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin, but they are few and far between.

The entire world can see this invasion for what it is: a brutal attack on freedom — an assault on life. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become an instant folk hero; the comedian-turned-politician has become the world’s defender of freedom, and nearly all of us want to rush to his aid.

A veteran I know texted me the other day. He’s volunteering to serve, in some capacity, to help Ukraine, which has started recruiting foreigners into an It’s a bit like the days following Sept. 11, 2001, when people of all walks of life dropped what they were doing to sign up to serve their country and defend democracy. It’s Pat Tillman quitting the NFL to become an Army Ranger. Countries are sending weapons and planes to Ukraine. People with no connection to the country are asking if there’s a way they can help.

Even Switzerland has shed its traditional neutrality to play a role in holding Russia to economic account for its unacceptable invasion of a free country. In the past two years, I often have lamented in this space, on Facebook and Twitter, and to whoever was listening, this new division in America. It’s been fed too often by disinformation on social media networks at a time when we often were separated from our neighbors, friends and family.

The walls of separation are dropping, perhaps coincidentally at the same time that the world is uniting against a vicious dictator whose aggression must be stopped for the sake of the free world.

There is hope in that, just like the vision of two teenage siblings, playing together, without a care in the world.