You know, when you decide to attend choir practice even though you have a cold, but find out the next day that it was actually COVID, now the 65-year-old choir member who sat beside you has to reschedule his eye surgery because he was a close contact. And since the healthcare systems are so backed up dealing with people with COVID, his surgery is pushed further and further out as his eyesight deteriorates.
Or when you know you have COVID, but you still let your elementary school son go to a friend’s house for a playdate, saying, “Oh, just wear a mask.” And three days later your son has COVID, but so does the friend. And now the friend can’t attend his upcoming competition even though he’s been doing really well in the sport and was very much looking forward to the competition.
But, if you’re one of these people who don’t even “believe” in getting tested for COVID, so while sick with cold symptoms, you attend a sport competition with your child, now your child has COVID and so does a best friend on the team. Now the friend is too sick to attend school and can’t get into remote learning for a couple days and is falling further behind academically at the end of the grading period, thus shifting his academic trajectory. Furthermore, every other kid and family member who was exposed has to spend the next week in the worry of checking for symptoms and getting tested, if they can even find a testing site given the current surge of cases.
When people use the phrase, “We’re in the together,” it’s not just that we need to bond together against this “virus,” it’s that we need to realize how interconnected we really are as human beings. We need to understand that the very decisions we make for ourselves or our family members have a ripple effect that affects the health and the well-being of others. That our decisions have altered another person’s ability to access health care, access learning, or access fun and joyous experiences.
So whether we like it or not; whether we believe in it or not; whether we want to do it or not; none of that matters. What matters is that we need to see each other as precious human beings whose very lives veer onto a new course based on the interaction they have with us. And if we’re passing COVID along, that new course might be a short-lived bout of feeling miserable and missing out or it could be a debilitating shift in the trajectory of life or even the end of life itself.
So what burden do you want to shoulder today?
The burden of being kind and considerate or the burden of hurting another human being?
The choice is yours every single morning.
Little Moka can’t come into the house without tracking in dirt or carrying in bits of nature. Mostly because she loves to dig the black dirt all over the sidewalk right in front of the door – so that everyone now drags in dirt! It’s especially awesome when it rains.
the next leg of the relay and to my running buddy, I headed over to the river to soak in the majestic views offered by the city despite a gray and foggy sky. Along the way, I politely offered to push buttons on cell phones to convert people’s “selfies” into “real” photos as I feel it gives a much better perspective (I’m a bit snobbish that way!).
the river and pointing out that you could see the runners on the other side. Having politely asked the mother of a two-year-old little boy (who was definitely “not” going to get close to Fred!) to take my picture beside him, I wandered back to the race course. There was the runner who had ended his conversation. We remarked politely as to how the weather had cooperated and the rain had ended. We wondered how we’d “politely” cross the course to get to where we had parked. And then we began talking about the charities that we had run for to raise funds. I explained the work of 
There once was a group of Yeti’s who so feared continuing death and slaughter at the hands of man that they moved high up into the top of the mountains and created a layer of fog to hide the humans in the land below.
tries to capture our hope, we stand together to say “Absolutely not.” We raise our voices to say, “Love is and always shall be stronger than hate.” 
And it is one I really needed after dealing with Super Tall Guy’s latest “rage” fit yesterday in which quite a bit of anything that was not nailed down went flying. We even hit a new level – the next door neighbor who absolutely never talks, came out of her house and grumbled, “What in the world is going on?” Sigh….
When Super Tall Guy is in a rage and we are squared off foe to foe….my love fights for him. Fights to have him calm down. Fights for him to know that I love him despite the ugliness. Fights for him to know that I will be there with open arms when this hurricane ends. When he weeps in sadness and feels unworthy, I wrap around him in love. I pay such a price in providing for the boys, not just in material things, but in time and worry and stress and endless energy.
Respect matters. I want to be better. I want to do better. Which means that I will also expect that out of others and I will stand in the gap whenever there is injustice and maltreatment of the innocent. And, I will expect my boys to be learning about love and kindness as well. I don’t expect them to be perfect. I know they will experiment with rudeness and meanness. I know they will tease others. I know they will say hurtful things without realizing it as well. But I expect them to reflect on those moments and learn from them with my guidance. I expect them to gradually get better. I expect them to learn the power they have in the choice of their words and actions. I expect them to value love. I expect them to respect others. I expect them to be a light into their world, to walk as a child of God. And I expect myself to model that for them and do the hard work of teaching them.
Christmas is always my favorite time of year. I think I just like lights…on trees, on bushes, on houses, on boys’ bunkbeds. They seem to emanate a feeling of peace and comfort. But the end of this year has been pretty bumpy and it’s been hard to capture any peace. It could be the endless roll of medical visits for my three boys (two fractures, bead in the ear, strep throat, medication checks, flu shots) or the endless saga of behavioral crises that my sister’s boys are wrestling with as the year comes to a close.
moments of Joy in watching Super Tall Guy in his first performance playing the saxophone. It could be moments of Hope in the excitement of The Little Guy waiting for Christmas (and expectantly looking for the elf that the babysitter likes to hide).
u-turn and I was clearly blocking its progress, I moved the car forward to the other side of the street. Super Tall Guy yelled out, “Mr. Ornery’s not in the car” (well, he used the middle kid’s real name, to be truthful). I stopped immediately, opened the car door and looked back about 20 feet behind me. My vision of Mr. Ornery in his bright orange shirt was blocked by an unknown car who had stopped right in front of him and the driver had jumped out to videotape or photograph my moment of stupidity.
training and then into residency as well until she passed away. Now I blog to share the crazy journey of parenting in a wider community. And every once in a while, and definitely not as often as I’d like, I also “journal” to my boys as short letters to them in small lined books.
I tell the boys every day, “I love you – forever, for always, and no matter what.” I finish their “journal letters” each time with the same words. Sometimes I need to remind myself that in the hard times, in the times when my love for them is hidden under painted fingers, soiled laundry, broken doors, angry words, noise and chaos, that this love is a commitment. Forever, for always and no matter what. That’s what it means to be their parent. And the honor and joy of being part of their lives is all I really need (well, that and coffee and chocolate pretty much does it!).
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