20 months. That’s the collected amount of time I’ve spent in quarantine with Lydia during her first 2 years of life. In fact, we’ve been doing that all this winter and March & April have been floating on my horizon as the dawn of freedom for months, now. A sluggish dawn that’s yet to come.
When you say you miss your family, I get it. Unable to attend weddings, reunions, parties, social gatherings. The sacrifices you make. The things that are lost. Your weary heart breaking in new ways each day. It’s a deep and lonely place, it truly is. You are brave for being here. You are brave when you don’t give up.
In all our months of previous quarantine, I had grandparents on call to help—crucial as Lydia was quarantined even from her brothers. I had neighbors who arranged play dates with my boys to give me a break. There were parks, and school, and soccer teams. I didn’t see much of those things, myself, but my kids did. And it mattered. What I didn’t have, however, were many people who could relate.
Now, there is no external help. There aren’t very many distractions. If you’re feeling like it’s hard, I’m here to reaffirm: yes, it is!!
BUT. We have each other. And I don’t know if you realize what a gift that is unless you’ve gone through this wasteland before... alone.
Before our experience with Lydia, I never fully appreciated the battles some people go through. The desperate loneliness of being home bound. The crippling fear of vulnerable health. Steep financial obligations you are desperate to pay. I knew these things existed, but from an objective, removed standpoint. I knew but I didn’t truly feel and understand. Not for days and weeks and months and years, at least. Not for real.
Things can get personal, really fast.
How strange it is to go through a crisis as a global community. It is both heart-wrenching and unifying. It leaves me broken but strengthened. And softened.
From those of us who’ve walked this path before, let us reassure you, now:
It will not last forever. It DOES end. And when you do get out after however long it will be, the sun and sky and people’s faces will have never looked so good to you. I promise. I PROMISE. And I can also promise that you will never be the same.
You will see and experience and live it all—MORE.
And hopefully... hopefully, we’ll remember. Because for some, the next hospital stay is always looming. There are some who wake up and go to bed every day, alone. Some walk broken and grasping beside us and we have never really looked or seen, before.
Here’s hoping that, when this specific experience is over, it’s not just our schedules that will change, but our hearts and eyes, as well. Forever.
