With a 22-year old daughter living in Myanmar, my husband and I tuned in to the pandemic long before most. We leap-frogged over a lot of the concerns that are now consuming many a modern parent such as cancelled school and under-stimulated students.
This isn’t a claim that our experience makes us any more informed or entitled to anxiety than others. Nor do we have special dispensation to complain about how this pandemic has been handled by leaders. Rather, we feel a kinship with the world that perhaps is missed by those who have yet to settle into the reality that we’re all in this together.
Engaged in a virtual chase around the globe in pursuit of an invisible enemy, we tried to get ahead of the virus lest our eldest daughter get stuck in any number of unfavorable situations – alone, stranded, sick….Our focus was on formulating a plan to evacuate her from the opposite side of the world as the need arose.
The call to action came in the form of a letter distributed by my daughter’s peers who found themselves ill with COVID-19 symptoms. The terrifying description of their experience within a primitive healthcare system unleashed the parental panic I’d been harboring for weeks.
None of us were sure that our special-ops level of planning would guarantee my daughter’s safety. But after a stressful 50-hour trip, she arrived home, rattled by the experience of traversing the globe under extenuating circumstances.
Although she was glad to have returned to the U.S. through a rapidly decreasing window of opportunity, my daughter was loath to leave her second home, especially the people she grew to love. She struggled to hold back tears when she broke the news to her students that their time together was coming to an abrupt end. For although their country borders China, they had been sheltered from the chaos thus far. Even my daughter, who was acutely informed of the facts via her stateside connections, insisted until the bitter end that she was unaffected.
She wanted that to be true. We all do. But slowly, we’re coming to grips with universal vulnerability. This disease is not selective. Every human being on the planet is, or soon will be, embroiled in this war in some way. None are immune. Many feel defenseless. Each, I suspect, is struggling.
My family has decided to quarantine together at home, even though my daughter offered to isolate offsite when she returned from Southeast Asia. Quarenteaming, we’re calling it. If she, or any of my family falls ill to this disease, I want to be the one to care for them. This isn’t valiant, it’s motherhood.
With all of us hunkered down together, frustrations arise of course, but so do humor and moral support. For the most part, short tempers and sharp tongues are quickly checked by the newest dose of sobering news.
When the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in my town, the local social media group erupted. Meanness and insensitivity dominated. One post demanded that the name of the infected family be revealed. The tone was disturbingly reminiscent of the infamous witch trials which took place in this same backyard in the 17th century.
Tension is high. But if we give in to hysteria and a compulsion to attack each other, we’re doomed to sink our own battleship. We’ll never win this war if we fight against our own team.
Life isn’t interested in blame. It’s also uninterested in assigning awards. This isn’t a competition in who’s doing the best parenting or homeschooling or good deeds. Life isn’t even asking us to be active or productive right now. What life needs from each of us is to shift our way of being, in favor of the greater good, and to apply the best of ourselves to what we now face. Because we’re all in this together.
Chaos & Clarity 