What's Been Lost

I've been thinking a lot lately about what's been lost - on a personal level - because of the pandemic.  

Yesterday, in particular, I found this topic turning over in my head, as we celebrated Thanksgiving on "the Mountain" with Jude's parents, Jane and Jim, and her brother and sister-in-law, James and Megan, and their children.  This is our second year in a row to spend Thanksgiving at Sewanee.  Actually, we're staying in the same house on campus, on Tennessee Avenue, we stayed in last year.

The juxtaposition of sharing Thanksgiving dinner with Jude's family on the same day the news broke of the discovery of yet another Covid-19 variant in South Africa - one that appears, early, to have the ability to escape the vaccine - was jarring.  

For me, and for us, it strikes me that the biggest loss was time spent with Jude's parents.  When I stop to think about it, we have not seen them regularly since March or April 2020, when our city, Nashville, and so many other cities shut down because of the pandemic.  That's 20 months and counting, which is why the thought of another, more Covid-19 variant is so depressing to me.  Things just seemed to be on the verge of normalizing and we have been seeing her parents more, then this.

We stopped going to church at St. Patrick, which was tough for us because we're a family that's in church every Sunday.  Several years ago, Jane and Jim joined St. Patrick, so we were used to seeing them every Sunday morning.  Many times, too, we ate lunch together, or celebrated one milestone or another at our house after church.    

The really hard part, it seems, is that the time we have lost with Jude's parents is irreplaceable.  We're not going to get it back and neither are they.  It's gone like the perfect summer day, one you didn't want to end but knew that it would.  Afterwards, it's just a memory.  

And speaking of memories, how many memories have we lost?  Of times with Jude's family or mine?  Of trips to the beach not taken?  Of a trip to Disney not taken?  How many sleepovers for the boys have been lost?  How many nice meals, together, at local restaurants?  

Having been through what I went through with my mom, I know the value of time with one's parents, or grandparents.  I've dreamed of my mom a couple of nights, recently, and I wonder if it's because I've been pondering this concept of losing time because of the pandemic.  I would give anything for another week - another day - with my mom, even near what I didn't know was going to be the end, when she was so diminished.  

I'm desperately afraid that Jude, or J.P. and Joe, are going to regret the time with her parents that has been lost because of the pandemic.  I don't want that.  I really don't.  

Of course, the other end of the equation is as hard to accept, if not harder.  Jane and Jim have lost 20 months of regular, consistent time with their grandchildren.  J.P. and Joe, yes, but also Caroline and James in Charlotte, NC.  What about the memories they haven't gotten to make?  That's a real tragedy.  To me, anyway.

Yes, it's Thanksgiving, and I'm at home on the the Mountain, where I feel more and more like I belong.  And I have so much to be thankful for, including a 5 mile trail run, yesterday, with J.P. on the Mountain Goat Trail, and another 5 mile solo run to the Cross today. 

But I want this pandemic to be over.  I want our lives to return to normal.  I want to travel out of state.  I want to spend time with Jane and Jim.  I want to return to St. Patrick.  I want to stop worrying about the mutations of the virus or the latest Covid-19 variant.  

Is that too much to ask?