Keeping Our Center ~ Day 20

A friend recently mentioned to me that she sent her grandchildren postcards and asked them, “How will you remember this time in your life?” I think that is a great question, not only for our children and grandchildren, but for us.

Here in Wisconsin we currently have 26 more days of this Stay at Home order, and many more days before this whole pandemic is over. How we remember this time is, at least in part, up to us. Will we remember this as the time of the great toilet paper run of 2020? Will we remember this as a time of being glued to the television and online news, watching obsessively as the death toll climbs and nations around the world struggle to bring the virus under control? Will we remember this as a time of loneliness and isolation, feeling the great loss of human contact? Will we remember this as the time when we missed out on weddings and birthdays, singing in the Easter choir, canceled concerts and sporting events? Will we remember this time by the crash of the stock market and the loss of jobs? It may be inevitable that we remember this time by the people we lose. I’m sure all of these things will be part of our collective memory, but how we remember this time doesn’t have to stop here.

I’ve watched the amazing creativity and resilience of people as they have come to acceptance of this situation and found new ways to connect and to respond in helpful compassionate ways. Perhaps we’ll remember this as a time when families drew closer because parents worked at home, and kids couldn’t go hang with their friends. Perhaps we’ll remember this as the time we all learned how to use online ways to see our loved ones, had virtual happy hours with our friends, and shared birthdays, wedding showers and more on our computers. Perhaps we’ll remember how neighbors reached out (without touching) by decorating doors and windows with construction paper hearts, with sidewalk messages, and teddy bears sitting in windows for kids to count. Perhaps we’ll remember how much we got done! All the rooms we painted, the closets we cleaned, the fantastic looking yards, the puzzles we did together, the books we read, the new recipes we tried. Perhaps we’ll remember how companies stepped up (or didn’t) to take care of their employees and customers. Hopefully we’ll remember this as a time of solidarity, where people set aside their differences and remembered our shared humanity by being gentler, kinder, more understanding and more compassionate.

What memories would you like to create in the weeks to come?

Love & Light!

Kaye