Reflections on a Year in the Time of COVID
There's a lot to say but then again, where do you really start?
Katie recommended that we all write our perspectives on COVID and what this year has been like. I guess I can start at the beginning, right? I can start with what I remember from a year ago.
President's Day weekend was where it began for me. I planned to go to Florida to see Kelli. That wasn't anything unusual. What was noteworthy was our plan to go to EPCOT. For all of the years I've been going to Florida, I'd never made a plan to actually enter any of the parks. So this was a big deal and we were excited about it. Impressions from that day included using sanitizer after we came out of the bathroom and Nathan exclaming to us, "Don't go to China!" We did (Sorry, Nate!). I'm sure that on one of our phones, we've got a picture of the 2 of us standing in front of the fake pagoda. We ate there, too. Marginal sczechuan, ha!
We waited for almost an hour to get on a ride called Soarin' Around the World and I've replayed the ride countless times in my mind and numerous times on YouTube, I loved it so much. But it was also the incident in line that remains with me now, a year later. I don't know whether to laugh or to shudder as I recall it. A man had a soft drink, swallowed wrong, spewed it up and it splattered all over the side of my face. I was mortified. I would have been mortified no matter what (We were too far along in the line to leave it but didn't have any means to clean it off of me.) but I guess the most noteworthy thing about that was that we were definitely NOT standing 6 feet away from anyone at that point.
I don't recall being alarmed at all flying to or from Ohio. I've always found airports and airplanes dirty and gross, so I probably traveled with sanitizer and thieves oil (Not unusual even before this time...Jenni's Magical Elixirs and whatnot...). I think the count was something under 20 cases of COVID in the U.S. But because I'd already had a round of this sort of thing at Mayfield (Swine flu outbreak in 2009.), I didn't feel concerned. We just used caution and sanitizer back then...and no one made a big deal of it. It came and went. I don't even think I knew of anyone who caught the swine flu so this sounded like that to me, at least back then it did. The news was reporting a virus that had come out of China and it had reached American shores but it was minimal and so naturally, my mind recalled the mid-2000s and how we handled things back then.
One week later, Katie, Dom and Vincenza came to visit. We planned a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I remember it was cold that weekend like it is this week...we were frozen walking into the building. It's the last memory that I have of things being normal. We checked our coats, walked through every display, rode the escalators from the bottom to the top floors and we worked our way down from there. We didn't feel strange or uncomfortable. In fact, we had a blast. I have since told Katie, "I'm so, SO glad we did that. It will always be such a great memory for me." Again, like the visit to EPCOT, we probably brought along sanitizer but I don't recall feeling nervous at all.
The week after that, the first cases started the exponential effect of the spread. It started a full-blown panic. The reports coming from the news moved from foreign places (Italy comes to mind. We watched Italy absolutely subsumed with this strange illness...and people were dying...) to both coasts and it induced public panic, that much has to be said. But the rate at which this thing took over New York City was cause for alarm, to be sure. I have often thought about the irresponsible reporting of this thing...how sensationalized it's been, along with the staggering facts of the virus. Seattle burned with it. NYC went up in flames with it. It raged through Philadelphia. The east and west coasts have been besieged with it. The major cities became overrun with the virus and people were dying. I remember seeing the Red Cross ship, the COMFORT, docked in the New York City harbor. So many people were so sick with this thing, they didn't have enough room to cope with it in the regular hospitals. So they created a floating hospital to tend to everyone. They didn't have enough places to put the bodies of the dead so they were using meat lockers on trucks. How could any of us know what was to come? My concern grew as the numbers changed. I thought that perhaps it would be limited to the coastal areas, but as we now know, that wasn't going to be the case. So much changed in so short a time.
Suddenly, everything went into lockdown mode. Mayfield High School closed their doors in early March. And we went virtual...well, we went from being in class together every day to checking in with students, putting all of my content for the freshmen and for communications class online and then checking in via email...because Zoom wasn't even a part of my daily teaching yet. I had no clue that school would not reconvene until November of the following year.
I parked my car in front of my condo on Arlington Drive and didn't leave the house for 3 weeks. The day before the annoucement was made that school was closing, Matt and I went and shopped for groceries and we stocked up for several weeks. I'm glad we did. I also had moved from Columbiana and Spotswood Drive so I had plenty of toilet paper (sigh) and paper towels. In fact, when I moved back into Arlington Drive in the autumn of 2019, Kelli joked with me, "Is there something you know that I don't with all of these paper products? Seriously, Jen!" We laughed about that. But the run on toilet paper became a totally huge concern...and groceries...whatever people needed to do in order to feel safe while we quarantined. My car didn't move for 3 weeks. But if I can be completely honest with you, those 3 weeks were not a bad time for me. I knew that I was in a safe place. I knew that all of you were in a safe place. I didn't really mind staying home. It was a relief for me. At a time when school gets really, really hectic and stressful, it was like someone hit the pressure release valve and I got the chance to decompress. It seems strange to admit this now but what I truly felt was relief. The world went on pause. We were told it would last a couple of weeks and to just hang tight. That most certainly was not going to be the case.
We eventually needed to go out for more groceries and I hadn't been interacting with the world so I didn't know that mask wearing had become "the new normal." We went to Marc's in Mayfield and I was SO freaked out. It's the first time I recall feeling the full effect of how the world had modified to deal with the horror show that this thing had become. People were moving silently through the aisles. There were no voices and it was so silent, eerily silent, that you could hear the cash registers scanning from all over the store. People were terror-stricken. It left me feeling shaken, to be sure. But the shelves. Oh my. There were big, gaping spaces where people had binge purchased and there were shortages on everything. It seems important to note that I never felt scarcity during this time but I know that many people did. We had everything we needed. Just like God promised us, He made a way in the 'wilderness' for us. I went back into the bubble, though, on Arlington Drive and didn't emerge for another couple of weeks.
School remained closed indefinitely so I had time. We had just visited the library and I had a pile of books. I remember watching the news and being so horrified by the sensationalism of the coverage that I could only take it in small doses every day. Matt was working at Home Depot in Highland Heights. He would come home pretty shell shocked each day and wouldn't want to see the news. I was relieved that Kelli opted to come home from Florida early. But I stayed put. Ohio's governor, Mike DeWine, was really adamant about everyone staying home unless they needed groceries. Home Depot was considered an essential business, so Matt worked. We didn't realize that he had begun getting ill again, had come out of remission. I attributed his fatigue to the stress of this new way of being.
The next memory I have is of Target...going there to pick up groceries and finding the grocery aisles DESTROYED with that same spooky silence while the clothing and soft lines were completely pristine and unshopped. Easter wasn't a possibility. By this time, it was mid-April and everything was still shut down. No one bought clothes for Easter Sunday because churches were shut down. No one had plans for vacations because the entire country was on quarantine. We had canceled spring break for the end of March; that was foregone. Everyone was hanging out at home. I don't need to remind you that Vincenza's 1st birthday was not spent together. And this has been the most difficult part of the virus. I can say that with absolute conviction and certainty. From April, 2020 until now, the limited contact with all of you has been the most upsetting part of this.
I would meet my friend Kristen at the high school at this point and we started walking around the outside of the school. She would cry, I would console her. I was having a kitchen and bathroom remodel at the condo, trying to decide whether to stay or to go from it. At a time of such profound stillness around the world, it's crazy to think that I found such a lovely place to move to...and that the condo on Spotswood sold within hours of it being listed for sale. Not far behind it was Arlington Drive, which also sold so quickly, and I made the move to Willoughby. Enormous changes and at such a time as this...again, while it felt like the world was living in desolation, I saw another of God's promises in motion. Psalm 118:5 says, "When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place." May 16th, which incidentally is the same day that my mother left this world, was the day I moved into my beautiful new home. And I put everything there, locked the door a little over a week later, and off I went to Florida.
Florida. We decided to sell 10 Shady Lane in this year. COVID caused panic there and the ball got rolling...which resulted in the collective decision to put that place up for sale. By the time I arrived in Florida and we began to wrestle with what to do, civil unrest began to boil over throughout the country with the death of a black man at the hands of a white police officer. I would have to say that with the school year ending preemptively (mid-May was eventful, to be sure) and being able to submit my grades from Florida, the dismay I was feeling was growing quite a bit. The TV was flooded with protesters who were breaking things, smashing things, burning things...and who couldn't get the sense that COVID was the fuel for this sort of fire? I wouldn't have been shocked to see a full-blown civil war break out but somehow it was contained.
In fact, I would say that the month of May would be the earmark for when this disease turned from a scientific anomaly to something that became politically driven. I still shake my head at that and I blame an errant, irresponsible President for downplaying the devastating effects of this disease and his blatant disregard for more sane, sound protocols. Two camps definitely formed at this point. There was a lot of unrest and disarray from May until now because COVID became a political ball for two camps to bounce around. It's shameful.
Gianna and I had a week in Florida together with the boys, our only recreation was the Gulf of Mexico. We drew the circle close and kept to ourselves, feeling like we were pariahs in our home there. That was unsettling but a truth that has to be acknowledged. Gianna left and I had a week alone there to wrap things up. I felt so much heartbreak at the prospect of locking the door to that little pink and white trailer, I called Kelli to fly down and she did. We closed it down and drove back together. By the time we rolled into Ohio, warmer days had come. And finally...finally...several opportunities to be all together as a family.
The summer grew hot and fast. Matthew had discovered that he was out of remission and again, some life-altering decisions were made at that point. I invited him back into my life and he started getting treatment in Butler, staying with Kelli at camp in Slippery Rock. God's provision, His timing...God has never been behind time and here it was in evidence once again. We passed the summer seeking water. We took walks to Lake Erie. We parked ourselves on the banks, and sometimes in the middle of, the Chagrin River to cool off and to catch some sunrays. Kristen and I continued to walk but not as frequently. I put my house in order. Simple. Slow days and simple.
When the new school year started, we were completely remote. I learned how to navigate Zoom and to figure out how to teach so that this school year wouldn't be a total loss. It was pleasant to be remote and again, I have to say, the schedule of teaching and having the pleasure of being in my own space in my new home was not troubling to me at all. But it wasn't meant to last. We invited students back, a huge outbreak swept the high school around Halloween, students went remote again, then back in person, then remote...school has really been a roller coaster ride for us this year. Now we are hybrid and things like, "Wipe down your surface," and "Pull up your mask," are as commonplace in my daily routine as, "Do you have your Chromebook?" or "Where is your homework?" I isolate myself as much as possible because we get emails every 2 days or so, announcing new infections (I'm writing this in my locked classroom, in fact.). Due to how much COVID has affected my immediate surroundings, I grew more uneasy about gathering, particularly as the weather has turned cold and we were forced to head indoors. Thanksgiving was spent looking at my loved ones through a screen. Dinner for 2. Christmas was the same...presents and cookies delivered remotely (Through the mail!) and video conferences replaced physical gatherings. Once more, it strikes me how strangely this year has unfolded. I know that we are all together in spirit and in our hearts but lacking physical togetherness, well...I have hated every moment of that.
I prayerfully navigate things each day and every week and somehow, we've made it this far and we're all still well. No one has grown ill. I am due to take the first dose of the vaccine in 2 days. The death toll in this country is hovering just below the 500,000 mark and I praise God that we've all remained healthy. That's God's provision. God is staying His hand. And although we're at the one-year mark of this global pandemic, we are learning to walk by faith, not by sight. Many things we have learned our whole lives have come to working knowledge now. We put our trust in God. We pray for all things. And most importantly, we set our eyes to the eastern skies. I find myself thinking about Heaven a lot, truly I do. As I contemplate what I believe to be true, many of you have heard me say, "Well, we know how this story ends. I believe we have begun to see the last chapter of humanity." What none of you has seen is a pre-dawn hour, when I'm thanking God for all He's done for us...and then I pray, "Lord, come for us! Come and gather us to Yourself!" And so it goes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Until we meet again...