The class of 2020 will have war stories to tell of pandemic virtual proms, drive-by graduations, remote freshman years of college. They will feel like a tribe when they meet.
People around the world have lost their battles with the virus, and their families and friends suffer with the empty chair at the holiday table, an image that resonates even with those who haven’t lost someone. People are out of work and struggling with paying rent and buying food. Some have become homeless. Not everyone has internet access or enough devices for their children learning from home.
At the same time, plenty of good things have happened this year. People learned to bake sourdough bread and read more books. Parents learned to appreciate their children’s teachers with their children suddenly in school from home. We all learned to appreciate front-line workers who risked their lives under brutal conditions to care for sick and dying people, drive trains and busses, keep us safe from crime, grow and pick crops, make sure grocery shelves had food and alcohol. I learned more about guitar playing and writing. We all learned about Zoom.
The luckiest people switched to working from home with no interruption of salary, but the addition of children added a new daily challenge — motivating, encouraging, trouble-shooting technology, feeding them and still working a full day. My daughter has struggled with this since April. Each of us has a story of challenges and adaptations made to regular life.
We all have migrated through stages of managing the pandemic in our lives. Many of us have experienced worry and fear, and navigated many serious questions about masks, distancing, pods, indoor dining, airplane travel, physical contact. We’ve felt boredom, frustration, panic, depression, joy, peace, hopefulness. Sometimes, we’ve felt any number of these in a given hour of the day or night.
There’s never been a year like this one. Even though that’s true every year, we’ll remember this one forever, and history books will be written. If we are fortunate enough to avoid the virus and have food and shelter until this is all behind us, we should be thankful.
This is a perfect time for compassion. There are people who are hurting all around us, and there are a million ways to help, such as donating to or volunteering at food banks or offering to help an older or disabled neighbor. My grandkids left notes at all the neighbor’s houses. We can reach out to someone who might be sad or lonely and just be with them. We can turn our attention completely to the people near us and listen carefully to what they tell us. We can think carefully about how we spend our time. Each of us has something we know we can do, and we need to gather the energy to get it done.
We all have to make many choices every day, and each of these moments provides an opportunity to help and to be compassionate, aware, kind and as wise as we are able. Each breath we take can be a reminder to drop the past, drop regret and anger, and drop needless worry and fear of the future. Doing so brings us to the moment. That’s what a day consists of, and ultimately, a year. We can start over and over and over, being here now, living each of our moments to their fullest.
