Covid Letters, No. 3

Today’s guest blogger is Sarah Jones-Popiel, a loyal subscriber (thanks!) with kids the same age as mine. I can’t really express how much I relate to her post, and as she said it all so perfectly, I don’t have to. Thanks for writing with such honesty, Sarah.

As always, those who relate, please speak up. We want and need to hear from you.

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Look on the bright side, we’ve been told since childhood.  Make lemonade out of lemons.  Find the silver lining.  But how does one wrap oneself in the comfort of a soft silver lining without suffocating in guilt?

The trees are blanketed in fresh snow this morning.  The world outside the window is peaceful.  Gentle fog drifts in and out, and a bird sings the promise of spring.  It is easy to forget what’s really happening out there, in the safe haven of these four walls.  But when reality hits, as it does in occasional waves, the fear is raw and tangible.  My parents are nearby.  Both are over 70.  My father lost part of a lung to cancer a few years ago, and underwent a heart procedure only weeks ago.  My parents, like so many other people’s parents, are the high risk.  My friends’ kids with compromised immune systems are the high risk.  This is real.

So my family is on lockdown.  We leave the house for walks, runs, and trips to the grocery store – and not the frequent “oh, you know what sounds good tonight” trips to the grocery store, but the “we’ve used up our fresh produce and don’t want to dip too far into the unperishables yet” trips to the store.  My husband has put his construction projects on hold.  We are spending our days together, the four of us, playing games and watching movies and attacking household projects.

This is what we can do to help, and I feel immensely guilty, because the truth is that the one thing we can do to help in this awful situation is the very thing I’ve been longing for.

Our lives have been moving at breakneck speed of late.  The kids have been consumed with schoolwork and activities.  My husband has three different jobs, and we have at times spent weeks without quality conversation.   Juggling work and household upkeep has left me tired, overwhelmed, and out of shape.  There has been one meeting or event after another.  I have been breathlessly aware that my kids are rapidly approaching college age, a looming deadline that I view with hope and excitement, but also a bit of dread.  “I just need more time” was becoming a pounding refrain in my overloaded mind.

Now it has all come to a halt.  We have plenty of time.  I see so much online talk about long days, unfilled hours, and restlessness, and I am mystified.  The days, these open hours, feel so precious to me.  I just wanted to freeze time for a bit, an impossibly unrealistic wish, and now it has come true.

My kids are fascinating creatures, and I love the traits that unfold without the constraints of a schedule.  Among the many things I’ve learned:

My son is uncannily skilled at card games.  He’s lucky and astute, bold enough to take chances but sensible enough that his chances pay off more often than not.  I didn’t know this about him.  He’s also remarkably diligent.  Track practice is “on your own” right now, and he’s sticking to the schedule dutifully.  (Thank goodness, because one thing I knew and did not need to learn is that he’s insufferable when he goes without exercise).

My daughter, not overwhelmed with homework, is delightfully willing to plan meals and make dinner for us.  Her unhurried and methodical manner makes her a much more skilled cook than I am.  (My impatient tendency to turn the heat up a little to move things along doesn’t always lead to a desired result).  She is struggling, for sure – her junior year milestones are turning out to be a mess of postponements, cancellations, and uncertainty.   But we are settling into the rhythms of her moods, and overall she is steady, creative, and pragmatic, a comforting presence in her predictability.

We needed a pause.  Our family has room to grow within these walls, and selfishly, I embrace it.

This is not by a long shot worth the suffering out there.  It’s not worth the lives of grandparents, parents, or healthcare workers that have been and will be lost.  I am not grateful that it happened, not like this.  I would trade it, of course I would, for one life returned.

Yet it is a fact, this gift of time, and so I do cherish it.  How can I not?  My love, gratitude, hopes and fears, have come into sharp focus against this hazy and uncertain backdrop.  And would these sacrifices, hardships, and lives lost be somehow reversed if we allowed ourselves to sink into sadness and fear instead of being grateful for what we have?  Still, my guilt is real and sharp: guilt that, for now, we are okay.  Guilt that we are perhaps audacious enough to be more than okay.

This, too, shall pass.  In time – hopefully weeks, possibly months – we will emerge from this freeze.  We will mourn those lost and start rebuilding.  The world will resume its frenetic pace.  My daughter will be off to college in what will feel like a heartbeat.  My son will be driving, and not demanding my attention quite as much.  These weeks will be a memory.  They probably won’t even seem real; they certainly are surreal now.  But this – togetherness, becoming reacquainted without the distractions and deadlines and commitments – this is actually as real as it gets.

Maybe we’re not putting our lives on hold at all.  Maybe, in the midst of tragedy and trepidation, we’re recognizing our lives at last.