Day #33 Writing Through COVID-19: Forgive

My brother-in-law Randy continues to improve, although still hospitalized in Scott County. My sister said he is confused; he seems to think it's August. But his physicality is better. He's sitting up and watching TV. He's on oxygen, but at a lower level than yesterday.

Today I read an article about hospitals that have mortality rates higher than 80 percent for ventilated COVID-19 patients. We don't have a clear picture yet of Randy's prognosis yet, but I want desperately to claim the past few days' progress as a victory.
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Yesterday was my town day. I headed in at 9 a.m. I allotted time to access the journalism photo server from the high-school parking lot (no luck). I then headed to the elementary parking lot where tech support told me the signal was stronger (still no luck).

Next, I went to the bank drive-thru before making a distance-conscious Walmart stop and two passes through Hy-Vee. I wore my mask. I monitored my physical spacing. I sanitized every surface.

Running errands during quarantine is work. It takes awareness, concentration, and a lot longer than you think it should.

So when I arrived home at noon (after delivering both my mother-in-law's and son's groceries), I popped the Hy-Vee pizza in the oven and told my parents I'd be down with lunch in 15 minutes. I darted to the computer to post the link to the day's ZOOM class, then unloaded groceries and prepped the lunch tray.

I was hungry. I was tired. The ZOOM classroom was set to open in 15 minutes.

So when I descended the stairs with my parents' (WELL BALANCED!) lunch tray and found them both still reclining on their sofas, reading the papers, the table not yet set, I felt my first genuine irritation since their arrival almost five weeks ago.

Rather than express this in words, I (the martyr!) proceeded to slap dishes on the table, unload my tray, and announce that I would be upstairs teaching classes for the next two hours.

My parents looked up from their newspapers, two turtles peeping out from their shells, just as I climbed over the old bunkbed ladder that I've positioned at the foot of the stairs as a makeshift gate to keep Vern (hairy, warty Vern) on the lower level.
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My parents are not stupid. They read my impatience.

Later in the afternoon, I overheard my dad's phone call to my sister. He told her how busy I was, how hard it was for me to be teaching classes while also tending to them. My mother tucked a $10 bill into my hand to thank me for bringing them chocolates.

I felt terrible.

I do not want my parents to think I am too busy or impatient for them. Yet that is what my nonverbals expressed in my delivery of their lunch.

COVID-19 has given me a chance to put my life on pause. I genuinely want to embrace this interlude as a gift. How often do we get to stop and re-set how we spend our time, what we value, what gives us purpose? For me, the changes imposed by the pandemic have given me an unexpected opportunity to know my parents again, at what is likely the closing years of their lives.

I am lucky my parents are woven of forgiving fabric.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison