A Pandemic Mother's Day
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Perhaps it’s our destiny that many Mother’s Days for my family will be highly fraught. Of course, I suppose Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and, really, pretty much all holidays bring with them tons of emotional baggage. For me and almost everyone else.
I wrote several years ago about how my wife worked on Mother’s Day when she was nine months pregnant with our third child. That was a challenging and emotional Mother’s Day, but this one has taken challenging to a whole new level.
My father passed away in December, which makes everything doubly hard. We were supposed to be there for my mom. Not just for Mother’s Day, but for all the days.
We were there in the before times, visiting a couple times a week around school schedules, but then suddenly we weren’t there. And it’s completely unclear when we will be again.
After a couple months with zero interaction, the children and I met my mom at a local park last weekend and the kids rode their bikes and we tried (unsuccessfully) to find geocaches. We wore masks and I kept my physical distance and the kids did too as much as they are capable. It was only an hour or so, and it was both comforting and nerve wracking. Perhaps the worst part of all this for those of us who have yet to be directly affected is the uncertainty.
I see people slowly starting to “return to normal” even as the number of infections is higher than it’s ever been. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take, but I still second guess my decisions constantly. Am I overdoing the social distancing? Or am I not being careful enough? I go back and forth on this every day. It’s exhausting.
It’s impossibly difficult to think about it all, so mostly I don’t.
I don’t think about the time we’ve lost just like I don’t think about how my younger son lost the end of his kindergarten year and how my daughter, my youngest child, should’ve started preschool, but now she might never go.
I try not to think about the summer that we’re almost certainly going to miss out on, at least to some extent. We only get so many of these while our kids want to be around us, and while we’ll spend more time together than ever, there will be a lingering gloom hanging over us that even the sweltering Florida sun won’t be able to chase away.
I say I’m not thinking about these little losses, but I definitely am. How can I not? First off, all this is super traumatic, and secondly, what else am I going to do? Make up another song to play on ukulele or bake another loaf of banana bread to share on Instagram? The world hopes not.
And it’s actually better to keep my mind occupied with little losses than to think about the bigger fears.
My wife will spend this Mother’s Day like she does most Mother’s Days: helping new moms and soon to be moms in her job as a labor and delivery nurse. Perhaps it’s an unconventional way to get some extended kid-free time, but I guess it works.
This year that will be different as well since the hospital is effectively locked down and the staff are in protective gear most if not all of the time. I can only imagine it’s extremely difficult time for new moms and their partners and I’m glad at least a few of them have my wife, who is infinitely skilled and compassionate, there to make things just a bit easier.
Meanwhile, the kids and I will wait at home for her to come back to us at night. I’ll be hoping she stays safe and my kids will be oblivious to the world outside our house and going nuts like they always do.
We have a little something special planned for when my wife gets off work, but I won’t give it away just in case she reads this. The only thing I’ll say is the kids thought it up so it’s a safe bet it will require a lot of work, frustration, and eye rolling on my part. The end result will be completely underwhelming, but very time consuming. A true win-win.
But at least the preparation is a distraction. It serves to fill the empty spaces left behind by what we’ve lost. It’s like infinite screen time and incessant snacking, which, let’s be honest, we’re all doing right now.
So here’s to finding little things to keep us distracted in this very unusual Mother’s Day. And here’s hoping next year’s will be better.
We may not be able to create a Mother’s Day our moms and wives deserve this year, but at least we can show them how much we care — in our own labor-intensive and confusing ways. And if we can’t be together this year, we can resolve to be together next year, because we all need something to look forward to.
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