To Remember This Time: Days 6 & 7 & 8

It stopped being fun.

My last post described the pleasant aspects of our newfound situation of self-quarantine, but Day 6 (Tuesday, March 17), Day 7 (Wednesday, March 18), and Day 8 (Thursday, March 19) brought challenges.

Tuesday started fine, with Jeff going to work as normal; and that evening even included a wonderful surprise visit from our friend Brandie!  Jeff had gotten home from work early, and we were in the kitchen preparing our dinner of taco salad when there was a knock on the door.  It was such an unusual sound that it caught us off guard; nobody was coming around to visit in these circumstances!  We were shocked to find Brandie there, but it all made sense when she told us that the restaurant that she works for (which is not too far from our house--"not too far" in northern Virginia terms anyway) was closing because of the virus, and they were allowing their employees to come in and get the food that would otherwise have simply gone to waste.  Brandie had loaded up the backseat of her car with an abundance of fresh produce and wanted to share it with us.  WOW!!!!!

We were so grateful for the food--it felt very much like the hug from God that we received when the Aldi employee just happened to bring out the strawberries when Jeff was shopping on Day 3, except this hug was even bigger!  A sweetly reassuring reminder that God is watching, is aware of our needs even before we are, and has a plan in place to meet them.  We also thoroughly enjoyed our time of visiting with Brandie, standing out in the front yard, talking about anything and everything.  Brandie was definitely a cherished messenger of God to us on this evening!

After that though, things went downhill.

The sore throat I had when I awoke on Monday morning continued to bother me--and in fact, got worse.  By Tuesday night, I was in a significant amount of pain, and that made me extra emotional.  On top of that, I had a misunderstanding with a couple of friends that night, and wasn't able to resolve it until Wednesday.  THAT weighed heavily on my mind and heart.  And besides all of that, I was really missing my parents and feeling anxiety about the future for them.

My daily phone calls with my dad help tremendously, but it's not the same as our old pattern of weekly face-to-face visits, and I was especially missing my mom because of being cut off from her.  Even worse, my dad wasn't even able to go and visit her because of an illness he had had, including a lingering cough.  I realize that with my mom's mental deterioration, she probably doesn't even realize that I haven't been to see her according to my normal pattern, and I'm not even sure if she is able to think about the fact that Dad hasn't come either.  If she does wonder what happened to him that kept him from coming, she's not able to express it.  So I should be grateful for the peaceful, unaware state she is in.  But on Tuesday night, I wasn't.

To be honest, I had some moments last week of letting my thoughts run wild in relation to my parents' health.  As I read about the horrible tragedy in Italy with so many people dying and--what's worse--their families not even being able to be with them during their last days, I worried about what would happen here if my mother would get COVID-19--or get sick with something else.  Would we be allowed to cross the protective barrier and be with her?

I forget which day this conversation occurred, but I was greatly relieved when my dad told me that in end-of-life situations, the nursing home was allowing family members to be with their loved ones.  That soothed my troubled spirit.

At any rate, for a few days last week, my throat pain and other discomforts, plus my fatigue, plus my anxiety about my parents, plus my misunderstanding with a couple friends, plus my feeling like I just wasn't getting anything accomplished because I was too sick and tired to be very productive (for example, I had envisioned having lots and lots of time to read aloud to my kids, one of my all-time favorite activities with them, but as it turned out, my throat hurt so badly I could only croak out one chapter of Little Women, our current read-aloud, before giving up in defeat, and that was discouraging)--well, all of this combined to erase the pleasantness of our confinement at home and make me wallow in the depths of despair.

But busy moms can't wallow for long--or if they do keep wallowing, they have to do it while they're doing other things, like cooking, dishes, laundry, caring for children, etc.  Life didn't stop and let me stay in the pit too long!  ;-)

Wednesday morning (Jeff's normal day off), we had a virtual staff meeting with others from our church, and we scrambled to adjust our thinking and our techniques for how to be a vibrant, effective part of the body of Christ during this time of hardship.  I can't remember for sure, but I probably took a nap Wednesday afternoon.  Our friend Ben brought some bikes to us that afternoon that he had been fixing for our kids--a much-appreciated act of kindness.  The kids have been riding them almost every day since then. That evening, we had a delicious (if I do say so myself) ;-) dinner of pork chops, roasted veggies, and leftover salad.  It was our normal evening for the men in our congregation to meet in DC for a midweek service, but only Jeff went from our household.  There were just a handful of men that met in person; the rest watched online.  The kids and I enjoyed watching the 2011 version of Winnie the Pooh, one of the best movies ever made.  :)  :)

Let me add that, during these more challenging days, I was very grateful for the kids' independence.  Not only are there some school subjects and household tasks they can do on their own, they also were able to play quite a bit outside during this time because the weather was warm and the fresh air was a delight.

On Thursday, I still wasn't feeling well physically (and perhaps it's fair to say, emotionally, too) ;-), but a great thing happened on Thursday: David went for a walk and found toilet paper at two stores very close to our house: H-Mart and CVS!  He bought one package at H-Mart, then two at CVS.  It felt like a sweet little miracle.  :)

That day, Jeff had worked at the barbershop, and that evening, Jeff met with our friend Ben, then went to Walmart and found some stuff, including our favorite Italian bread (another hug from God).  The kids and I were content to stay at home and have Jeff be our ambassador to go out and find provisions.  :)

Thursday evening, I finally was able to pull myself together mentally and prepare a good (not fancy, but healthy and satisfying) meal for the kids: quesadillas, fresh veggies (tomatoes, carrots, celery, snow peas), fresh grapefruit, and smoothies, prompting one of the kids to exclaim that it was his favorite meal!  :)  Realizing that we were almost certainly in this self-quarantine for the long haul and noticing the boredom of David in particular, I let him choose what fun activity the family should do.  When he chose to have us watch The Emperor's New Groove, I had no idea how much I would enjoy it!!  :)  Later that night, I finished the dishes and got to blog again--two things that helped my mental condition.  :)

After being in a funk for a couple days, I felt like I had undergone a reset and was ready to go again.  I'm so thankful the shadowy valleys don't last forever!