August in a Pandemic – Finding Hope and Life

When I was eight or nine years old, my birthday party was horseback riding with friends before swimming at the reservoir and binging on cake and ice cream. The ride must’ve been about an hour. Near the end of it, we headed back to the stables, and something happened — the horse my cousin was on got spooked and took off. 

A first-time rider, she panicked, jumped off, and broke her arm. I think my mom took me and the rest of my friends to the reservoir while my cousin went to the hospital, but I can’t remember for sure. It seems cruel if we went. But also, what to do with eight or nine girls who’d been promised swimming on an August afternoon for a birthday party? You’d think I’d remember something like that. I wonder if my mom remembers.

August in a Pandemic – Finding Hope and Life

Today, August is just a few hours away, and I’m a little unsettled. I mean, how do we find hope and life in a pandemic, anyway?

Except, hope and life find a way. Tucker told me to come outside last night because “It’s a triple rainbow, Mom.” 

And it was. In this not-so-great photo, you can kind of see the third one on the very far left…

One August, he asked if I’d watch him play. Days are long, years are short, and all that…

Still. I’m unsettled. (also if you want actually good photos, visit Tamara’s blog – she knows how to take the pictures)

I’d like to say it’s not just the pandemic but let’s be honest. COVID has made everything more unsettling. August makes me happy – it’s my birthday month, and while I’m no longer excited about the next number on my timeline the way I was as a kid and teen, it feels special somehow. 

August is the month we cram in one more long weekend trip before school. It’s a party of some sort with friends and family. It’s a time of reflection on what I want to change before my next birthday. 

This August though. 

(This year though)

As of now, this August is the month I choose between my son’s mental and physical health when it comes to going back to school. This August, I won’t have a big party, although I may brave a small one, with socially-distanced stations in the back yard, while further trashing the environment with paper plates and throw-away forks because that feels less horrifying than handling dishes and utensils of somebody who may be spreading the virus without even knowing it. 

***

This morning, at 4 am, Tucker woke me up with a hand on my shoulder, a whispered “Mommy,” just before climbing into and vomiting in my bed. “In my bed??” I shrieked, less sympathetically than I’m comfortable admitting, right before thinking “OMG. He hasn’t called me ‘Mommy’ in years.” He was burning up. “It’s come here now,” I thought. “The Corona.” 

Luckily, I don’t think it’s THE virus, but another one, maybe. While he has a fever, slept most of today, and feels plain old yucky, he has no respiratory symptoms. Diarrhea? Um, yes. But no sneezing, coughing, shortness-of-breath and PLEASE GOD don’t let it be the Coronavirus. 

Not-so-lucky, I’m terrified to call his pediatrician although I’ve promised myself I will if he still has a fever in the morning.

In recent interactions with his doctors and mine, I understand that a doctor’s office is a business, and they’re suffering right now because nobody wants to go there unless it’s an emergency. My anxiety isn’t sure it can handle a pediatrician telling me “better bring him in to be safe, in case” when my lizard (other? whatever) brain reminds me that he’s had fevers before. Kids get sick, and he’s been sick and I have NOT gotten it and it’s just been days rather than weeks.

But the pandemic, friends. Anxious minds go to anxious and catastrophizing places. 

We have a barn swallow nest right next to our front door. It’s messy and annoying, or it was before they got more used to us and stopped dive-bombing us each time we opened the front door. The babies hatched on Sunday. Wednesday, they opened their eyes. 

Four of them. Initially, I thought there were three. Turns out, they were just mushed together, all sibling-like.

These baby birds have been a reminder that life goes on. We persist and resist and continue, mostly. It’s likely Tucker doesn’t have COVID. It’s likely that none of do, and if we get it, that we’ll survive. 

Probably. 

These birds are also a reminder that not all of us make it. Yesterday, I texted my friends that they’re Bugs Bunny-like with their open mouths and cuteness. 

And they are.

Or, were. Because life and death happen even when we’re not expecting it.

This morning, during one of the 17 minutes in 15 hours that Tucker wasn’t saying “Will you sit with me?” I checked on them. Of the four, only three were chirping in the nest, and one lay lifeless on the porch beneath the nest. I *know* that with life, comes death, but I was sad. Sadder than I’d have been without a pandemic, I think. It was just there. Lifeless, and I couldn’t help wonder if it fell out and the parents weren’t strong enough to carry it back to the nest, if I’d have been there, if, if, if… All the ifs. 

This nest and its contents have been such a focus recently. We’ve learned more about birds, and life, and maybe even ourselves. That four became three is natural, but also heartbreaking. Maybe that’s the lesson. I don’t know.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Tucker, who had called me “Mommy” several more times in his fever delirium. It’s worrisome that he felt bad enough to have regressed however many years, but also familiar, in a time that feels unfamiliar. 

August in a Pandemic – Finding Hope and Life

I know that three out of four birds is hope and life, especially now in August during a pandemic. Still, it slayed me a bit. 

I’ve lived through a lot of Augusts and have faith that we’ll see September at the end of this one. What it’ll look like? I don’t know. I’ve gained some peace in realizing that NOBODY knows. We just don’t know if schools will for-real re-open, or if they should. Probably, they should not. I mean, there are more cases now than when they closed the schools.

We know nothing. If there will be a larger spike in the virus. If people will wear masks when they’re supposed to… we don’t know. 

In mere hours, it’ll be August. I remember past ones and dream of future ones where hugging and parties will once again be something we don’t think twice about.

For now, I’m sending hugs and love to each of you and yours, hoping this month brings you summertime joy, peace, and a way to feel like yourself as much as possible in an impossible time.   

***

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post, with the prompt of “Once, in August…”