Day 5
Why aren’t activities being rescheduled?
It is time for activities to be put back on the calendar. I need the optimism. I want my kids to see something worthy of anticipating – even if their hope, in the end, is left aimless and unfulfilled.
Why not publicize the resumption of Lynden’s soccer season in June?
Please reschedule Vivi’s gymnastics recital for sometime after Memorial Day.
Let’s plan to send graduates on their way with a ceremony commemorating their accomplishment at some point in the summer.
Why not, at this point, give our kids something to look forward to?
Just like signing up for a marathon a year in advance, there is a pervasive power to act when something meaningful is written on a calendar – even if written in pencil.
We all know that the dates will move. We realize that all of these events will not be completed under the pre-COVID protocols.
What is the worst that can happen?
Sure, we might set up our children for disappointment in a month or two. Parents might have to, again, explain why ensuring public health is more important than anything else.
That’s okay with me. The opportunity cost of avoiding disappoint is worse – shielding kids from harboring anticipation and excitement for something they love to do.
No one knows when normalcy will be restored. Anyone that guesses will be incorrect.
But, if I am too scared to be willfully wrong and ignorantly bullish about the post-COVID world, how can my kids regain the optimism that this awful virus has, for the last month, squashed?
Finding the Funny
If you think back to the lead-up to the COVID quarantine, can you think about anything you said that, now, is ridiculously misinformed? My list includes comments like:
“We’ll be fine. The flu is much worse.”
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“Of course we’re still taking our extended weekend trip for Spring Break.”
“Sure, I’ll go to Costco (the day after President Trump addressed the nation). Of course they’ll have toilet paper.”
Parting Perspective
There has always been a piece of me that feels badly that my kids have attended far more athletic events than church services. While I’m not a religious person, celebrating Easter this weekend feels cathartic.
Today, at dinner, we chatted about the story of Jesus’ resurrection. My 4 year-old, Emersyn, who attends a church preschool, proclaimed herself the resident expert. “That’s when heaven was created,” she schooled us confidently.
My middle school sons, on the other hand, were more interested in talking about the gore of the nails driven through Jesus’ hands and feet. “How could anyone be treated that way?” they questioned.
I tried to guide the conversation toward the lesson of re-birth I remembered from early childhood classes from my Catholic upbringing.
Even though we were all precisely incorrect, we left the table with smiles and hope.
I am no more spiritual than I was three weeks ago.
I’m no more likely to attend an online service this weekend (or anytime soon).
I am, though, damn glad that this weekend we’ll have something, finally, to celebrate. We need it.
Have a great weekend.
Between strictly correct or incorrectly optimistic, I’ll choose the latter.
Call someone you haven’t in a while.
Parent on.
More to come.
