A letter to my 7-year old daughter: How to survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family

How to survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family: A letter to my 7-year old daughter.

Dear Em,

Oh, sweet girl.  As we go about our morning, my thoughts are constantly on how to survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family.

What a ride this is going to be for all of us.  Seemingly overnight, the world as we all knew it is gone.  Your school closed (hopefully just temporarily).  Events are canceled.  Businesses are shuttering.  We’re being asked to stay in our homes and help “flatten the curve” on the Covid-19 virus.  We didn’t even know what flatten the curve meant two weeks ago and now it’s forever part of our cultural lexicon.

These are banana times, as my friend Patrick said last night.  I have no idea what the world will look like in two weeks or four weeks or four months.  I hope and pray with all my heart that this is a temporary blip on the path. But I fear these repercussions we will be felt worldwide for years to come.

You are immune to economic worries thus far.  You don’t understand what Daddy and I are talking about when we say our Vanguard account has taken a hit or we are facing a recession, the likes of which no one has seen since the great depression.

But you do understand disappointment and sadness. 

When I told you my trip to San Diego for a photography conference was canceled, you immediately thought of me.  “Oh no!  I know you were excited about that!”

When I told you we had to cancel the whole FFA convention, your worries were for me and my “FFA kids,” as you call them.

We’ve made no bones about talking about this virus and why we are canceling events and staying home.  We’ve explained how it is the most dangerous for people like your Nana, Grammie and Papa.  And God bless your little heart, you’re ready to shoulder some of that burden yourself.  When I told you our 4-H sewing clinic was canceled, you said “Sometimes you do hard things because it’s the right thing to do for everyone.”  Not even 8 years old and your selflessness tops that of most adults.  For that, I am proud.

Last week I was in PR executive mode. 

Organizational crises are my thing.  When decisions and plans need made and plans, my training shines.  Last week the crisis was merely organizational…there were conferences to cancel, folks to notify, airline reservations to change.  That’s the easy stuff.  Gather the information, weigh your options, make a decision and go.  It’s what I’ve been taught and what I did for years.

Rescheduling photography jobs felt like the right thing to do.  My business will survive.

Having enough supplies and food on hand to last several weeks isn’t a problem.  Daddy and I started our married lives 45 miles from the nearest grocery store.  Having a good stockpile of supplies was just an everyday part of life for us then, and we still have that mentality.

But last night, the enormity of the situation we are in hit me on a personal level.  I was reading an article from Italy about how their churches, mortuaries and crematoriums are breaking down.  They simply don’t have the resources to handle their dead.  Because of limitations on gatherings, families and friends are unable to get together for funerals.  Only small, graveside services exist.  Most of the time, funerals mean a single priest and someone’s beloved family member.

That absolutely gutted me.

I think that’s the worst part about this entire thing and the hardest thing to navigate.  How to survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family when you can’t physically be a community.  Not that we are missing events we look forward to or fighting over toilet paper (maybe in twenty years you can explain this one to me).  But that we are going to have to go through this isolated, physically, from our friends and family.  Our natural tendencies as humans is to gather together to weather a storm.  We hold rallies and candlelight vigils and receptions because we crave the comfort of others.  This virus is denying that very thing which makes us human.  And I think that’s the cruelest part of it all.

So I stood in the shower last night and I wept.  I wept for all the lost opportunities of our seniors.  I wept for all those facing financial shortcomings.  For the teachers suddenly asked to play a role they never envisioned.  I wept for the sick and the dead and their families.  And, in truth, I wept for us.

Kiddo, the world feels really scary right now.  Not in a physical, this virus is going to kill us, sense.  Our personal risk factors are low, we are taking precautions and it’s not a tsunami of death.  It is absolutely serious and will be deadly to lots of people, probably even people we know.  But this isn’t going to wipe out half the world overnight.

I’m scared because of what this might mean for our future.  One day I was a photographer and freelance writer and all of a sudden, I’m a homeschooler.  I don’t know what the hell I’m doing in that arena.  What will isolation and confinement mean for our family.  I’m an introvert by nature.  I actually enjoy working from home and use those quiet periods to recharge my batteries.  You, child are an extrovert.  You like crowds and action and surrounding yourself with friends and family.

Finding a balance that works for us all feels really overwhelming right now.

And I’m scared for our collective futures.  What will the world look like in six months?  Will we have lost family to this virus?  Friends?  What does this mean for our community and our country?  What does this mean for our state’s budget next year?  Our future fifteen years from now?  Will it affect our retirement?  No one has those answers right now.  It’s pointless to dwell on them, but those fears are there.

I normally save these letters to you for your birthday.  But this feels like such a seminal moment in our lives that I felt I needed to document it.

My hope is that someday you read this letter and remember this with fondness.  As in “Mom, remember that time you had to homeschool me for like six weeks?  Wow, that was wild.”  I hope that it becomes a story you tell your children and that there are moments we laugh about in the coming years.  I pray it’s not one of those before and after moments.  You are an ebullient, buoyant little ball of sunshine.  Those characteristics will serve us well in the days and weeks ahead.  I pray nothing happens to change that.

And I hope that some good comes out of these.  Your dad likes to say that hard times make strong people.  First, I hope we emerge on the other side of this more connected as a family and community.  That we stop taking little things for granted.  That we grow in compassion and love for our fellow man.  We slow down, laugh often, love more and let go of so many material concerns.  That we let go of the blame and accusations and conspiracies and hate and just pull together as a community, nation, and world.  Those are my prayers for this world.

So how do we survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family?

We do it one day at a time.  With love.  Patience.  Understanding.  Compassion.  By practicing forgiveness and growing our hearts.  Striving for normalcy but accepting that change is inevitable.  By using technology to stay connected, if only virtually, to those we love far away.

Through it all, I hope you know we are doing our best. 

This is unchartered territory for Daddy and I.  We will mess stuff up.  We are going to fight and argue and get on each other’s nerves.  I’ll probably cry and yell at least a few more times before this is all over.  But we’ll figure out how to survive the Covid-19 pandemic as a family and community.  Finally, know we love you with all our hearts and are doing everything we can right now to keep you safe, keep you content and maintain and much normalcy in this wacky mixed-up world as we can.

All my love,

Mom