So here's what I think about the Covid-19 quarantine: I don't know. Here are a few thoughts.
On the one hand:
Eek! It’s a world-wide plague! We are all going to die!
On the other hand:
What an overreaction! It’s another disease and some people will die from it, but, come on, we are all going to die sometime.
And then on yet another hand (foot?):
The economy is going to implode. All businesses are going to be destroyed except Amazon and Netflix! We will be functioning like hunter/gatherers before the year is out.
And then on that other hand:
Everything will get back to normal soon. We’ll be OK. Right?
So, probably like a lot of you, I’m feeling pretty conflicted. And I don’t feel at all qualified to comment on any of the above.
But here is something I am sure of. I love this one side-effect of the quarantine. I love living in a multi-generational home.
I am not quarantining alone, as many of my friends are. Because of a variety of circumstances too complicated to go into here, I am co-quarantining with about fourteen of my immediate family. Before you begin to worry about us, we are pretty careful. Only one of us goes to the store, wearing a mask. We don’t hang out with anyone else, just us.
We have living with us (or with us every day) for the past eight weeks or so our adult son and his two little boys, our adult daughter and her husband and baby, and our two teenaged grandchildren. Add to this my three children who live nearby and their families, who come in and out frequently, and the result is we have been together as a family, closer and longer, than we have since the kids started getting married.
And I love it.
I love waking up to the sound of piping little-boy voices asking for breakfast. I love Mary walking in the door with toddler Lucia, who runs to my arms saying “Gamma, ‘side?” And then we go outside. I love helping the little boys with their schoolwork and getting to know Olin’s teacher and learning how to make a catapult out of popsicle sticks.
I love having David come down for lunch and tell me about the people he works with and his challenges and successes. I love seeing Mary in the dining room working on grading papers and hearing her talk about her students. I love seeing David and Mary and Krystian take care of their little ones with such patience. I am getting to know my adult children all over again, as I see them every day, all day.
I love having the teenaged grandchildren around, seeing their diligence in doing their schoolwork, seeing their delight in helping the little cousins, laughing and playing games with them.
I love having help nearby when my computer doesn’t work. We finally got the TV and sound system working right, because of all the tech-savvy folks around.
I love that Mary can drop off her child and say, “I’m going for a run.” It is such great symbiosis: I love having the baby with me and she loves having a break.
I love that we are together all day. We can read a scripture in the morning, like this recent choice: “You will teach your children to love one another and to serve one another.” And then we can talk about it through the day—when loving and serving gets a little tricky.
I love seeing my table full of my loved ones at every meal. I love how everyone pitches in to cook and to clean up.
I love seeing the adults talking together, advising one another, laughing together. I love seeing the teenagers learning from their aunts and uncles.
I love worshipping together on Sundays. Even though we can’t gather with our congregation, because our church has a lay ministry, we can take the Sacrament (Communion) every week in our own living room. I love seeing my sons and sons-in-law blessing and passing the Sacrament. I love playing the piano as we sing the hymns. I love hearing everyone share what they have learned from their scripture study that week.
As we move toward lifting the quarantine, I am of course happy. I’m happy that many lives have been saved, happy that businesses can resume business, happy to look forward to seeing friends and going to the mall without fear. But I am also a little sad. How I will miss this time. How I wish we could remain in such closeness.
A couple of generations ago, my ancestors all lived within a few blocks of one another in the small town of Spanish Fork. My great-grandfather would go out every morning with a basket on his arm to visit every one of his children, to bring them whatever he had to share that day. When my mother was a child, every day before school she and her sister would run next door to their aunt’s house to have their hair braided, because Aunt Edna could do it better than their mom. When my grandmother was widowed, her mom was able to tend the children so she could go to work.
Though I know it is often impossible and sometimes even not advisable, right now Covid-19 has reminded me how good it can be when family are near enough that they can help each other, not just in crisis but in everyday, ordinary, without-even-thinking-of-it-circumstances. Just because we are family and we love each other.
