Do you remember the exact moment you thought this Cororna virus is unlike any illness you’d seen in your life time? Oh yes, there's been Sars, or Ebola, and as frightening as they sounded to me, I wasn’t holded up in my home, scared to be exposed to my own kids! For me it was when they started talking about letting school out! I thought this is serious, we about to learn how unpredictable this life journey is and how fast it can flip!
Time with our loved ones isn’t just a given. When school did let out that put Shelbey at home with her boys so that was a relief for me, because I had picked up a cough that Kerry had first and it was one of those hackers where you think you may cough up a lung before you are done! Every day for a six weeks we coughed and coughed with little sleep! No fever just hacking. Sydney was still working and I really worried about her touching maybe 30 peoples hair and beards etc. every day and then coming home to get Easton and maybe exposing him and us. Her bosses were so good though that they held a zoom meeting right away and ask all the staff if they were comfortable working. Syd said she cried and said she was so worried about dragging something to us with Easton coming back and forth so she cut way down and her bosses were ok with everyone doing whats right for their own family. Then later that month they decided to close before it was ever decided they had to because they care about the employees. They said we say we are a family and we are going to act like a family. Melissa and Brendon got grounded to their houses too, so with all that said and all our family safe I should have hit the deck running with all the projects I have to do, papers to sort, Shutterfly books to make, garage to clean, pantry to clean …you name it, I have it to do. Did I? NO! Only Brendon and Melissa did that - just hit the ground running and put up a chicken coup, painted their pantry etc. I, on the other hand, sat around for days (30 to be exact) like I’d been shocked with a stun gun! I was still coughing, yeah… thats my excuse. Then I got antibiotics and took some steroids and got better but the numbness and disarray in my life continued. I missed the kids like crazy for one thing, the stories of people gasping through masks on facebook where causing me to panic and be sad, beloved entertainers getting and dying from it, more stories of people having to go in the hospital, ALONE TO and die alone with no family was really dragging my mind through the darkness. I cant think of anything worse. We always have a running anxiety level in our family and Sydney said at one point, “I just want my old anxiety back”! I thought… me too!
As I write this I ask myself… why am I writing about it? It hasn’t affected me it like it affected all those who lost family members? I wasn’t holding up a sign to my family on the other side of the glass? What am I complaining about? Too much netflix? To much cooking? Too much sleeping in? It’s a lil like writing about 911 when you lived in Phoenix at the time. Like how dare I really, but yet I feel like I need to get out what I’m feeling about it!
So how is this going to change us? How are we going to come out of this? Are we going to hustle to the store the first day we can….not me, I’m a chicken with compromised lungs. I won’t be.
Maybe when we get to the other side of this we will realize we are stronger than we ever thought we could be.
Maybe we’ll wake up every day with a prayer of gratitude, I mean before our feet hit the floor a lil thank you to God for surviving this pandemic, and thankful for this day with our family.
Maybe we’ll be thankful for our work, even though it’s all too much sometimes gives us a way to take care of ourselves and our families and see our children in school, our clients that we miss and our co workers.
Maybe our priorities with become more focused, more clear about what if it were all over tomorrow is really important enough to spend your days doing and the reasons for it.
Maybe precious is a new word we will use often. Our faith in God is precious, our kids are precious, our parents are precious our extended family is precious. Our unpredictable life is precious.
Today is Good Friday, Jesus died on the cross for us only to raise again on Sunday, We too will raise again! Trust God.
I loved this, Pam. You put my feelings into print.
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