This title doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, but you get the idea. I wrote this piece around the holidays, which I suppose started out inspired by remembering a joke from one of our favorite comedians. It seemed to fit in my mind. Okay, so, Ron White does a bit where he says, “My brother is a doctor and my sister is a lawyer, and I hate Thanksgiving.” Do we know why that is funny? My guess is because, in one way or another, it resonates. True stuff is funny. It is not so much the profession but the black sheep status that strikes me. I guess that is on my mind as we just finished the third quiet Thanksgiving in a row.

We were going to get together with the immediate family locally, but naturally, they were all sick just a few days before the holiday. We decided to pass on the family turkey dinner with a side of mucus-induced vomiting and fevers for dessert. RSV is just yucky, hitting people hard this year, especially kids. I vaguely remember a time when we did not actively weigh the pros and cons of family gatherings or just going out in public and doing things, but it seems like it was a lifetime ago.

Before the pandemic, we traveled. We were spry, I guess. We are not a family with a lot of money, but one year we decided to splurge on a staycation. We stayed at a hotel and took the boys to Legoland and the Sea Life Aquarium. We saw a kid sneeze in a bucket of Legos. Despite hand sanitizing the children up to their shoulders, five days later we had Strep…followed by pink eye…with ear infections as icing on the cake for everyone. I likened the pediatrician to Oprah – “he gets an ear infection, and he gets an ear infection!!!” Have you ever given a cat a pill or wrestled an alligator into sleeper pajamas? I have one child who will take the meds like an adult…and two who make wrestling the gator seem far more appealing.

All three were born a little early and spent time in the NICU. So pre-pandemic we were no strangers to concerns for the germs encountered out “in the wild.” Our oldest has a rare genetic diagnosis that fortunately doesn’t impact his life too much now. He still has lower muscle tone than many of his same-age peers. We still work on strengthening skills and confidence. Our youngest had infantile spasms (IS) at six months old. The IS was rare too with only 15% of children sharing his successful treatment. There will be a follow up blog post for those who may be interested in information about this seizure disorder in babies and our personal experience with it.

Maybe it is post-pandemic guilt or the morning after tryptophan stupor, but I find myself perplexed. Whether one is pro/anti-mask or pro/anti-vax is not what I find perplexing. Quite frankly, I think what I think and if someone thinks differently, I respect that. I do me, you do you. What bothers me is the aftermath of the pandemic. The survivors, not just those who had Covid at its scariest but everyone. We locked down. We closed schools. We socially distanced ourselves to “flatten the curve” and protect the vulnerable. Humans are social by nature; for many, the isolation mentally and emotionally took a toll. People were alone. People died alone. Families who share differing levels of concern were divided. Some who were divided to begin with, broke down completely.

But here we were, our youngest family member was literally discharged by neurology at the start of Covid. On his second to last visit, he walked between my husband and me, smiled, and laughed. The doctor called him a beautiful miracle baby. His last visit would be via Zoom, compliments of Covid. In fact, the pandemic made it to our area the weekend we returned to Sea Life to celebrate his second birthday. We heard the news on the radio as we were leaving. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. There was not a huge crowd but there were a lot of people. Oh my gosh, he touched the glass. I couldn’t remember if his little face touched the germy glass aquariums. Did he put his hands in his mouth?

I remember calling the neurologist. I remember what the nurse said. “We don’t know what Covid could do, treat him and your household as high risk.” My mindset changed at that very moment. I tried with every ounce of motherhood in my body to keep it together and be brave. In my mind on repeat, however, I could see him in my arms having clusters of seizures. I could hear him scream between each one in my head; the echo of which followed by deep grunts as the next one took hold is forever etched in my memory. I can think about the experience and hear it all replay as if it just happened. We followed the advice. It was hard. We sheltered in place longer than the lockdowns lasted. My husband and I took the vaccine when it first came out. We were careful. We are still careful. Covid, however, is a Marvel-level villain.  And like Thanos, it was an inevitability.

We all had Covid this summer despite the precautions. We are still careful. It causes hurt feelings from friends and family members. “You are going overboard! Don’t be such a fanatic. Don’t you think the kids need to be around family and get out, do things, and be social?” It hurt my heart then and it still does now. We are starting to get back out into the world, they weren’t wrong – but I don’t think we were either. We followed the advice of the physician who treated our child. It is not like we came up with this stuff out of thin air. We never want him to experience what he went through ever again. That thought process weighs on every choice we make.

There is a line that Stephen King uses throughout one of my favorite fantasy series – The Dark Tower that says “…and the world moved on.” I find myself thinking a lot about how the world keeps moving.

About a year ago my mother had a stroke. That event forced us to change our levels of interaction rather quickly. I went to the hospital. I brought Covid home. Don’t think I don’t appreciate the irony there. Guilt and anxiety are on both sides of the coin if that makes any sense. I help with appointments, but she and my brother live with our sister. They live about an hour in a half away from us. I feel guilty that I don’t help enough, but I try. The stroke left her with a progressive form of dementia. I should do more. I want to do more. The guilt is heavy. On the other hand, I helped and brought the very thing we feared for two years directly to our home.

We have some tough choices ahead in how to proceed to help everyone and further re-join society. Our parents are aging, as are our grandparents. It is such a bewildering position. I think that it is an evolution in the sense that every generation must deal with these issues on some level. Every generation has problems that they have to figure out. For us, the pandemic has played a role. We were told after all by the media circus to protect “grandma” – flatten the curve. Get the vaccine when it is available. Unfortunately, while protecting the vulnerable, the world moved on as it is known to do while the inevitability of the aging process combined with isolation, in turn, hurt everyone involved in the crossfire of it all.

Are you dizzy from this merry-go-round I have taken you on at lightning speed, dear friend? If so, I feel ya and apologize. Welcome to my brain and its little shop of horrors. I feel like at any given moment I am being pulled in all directions. In addition to aging parents and grandparents needing us, we have the duties of parenthood. It does not help that literally; all aspects of parenthood are debated with shall we say spirited opinions on both sides. If you don’t believe me, check out some of the parent comments on your favorite social media platforms. So often I see the newbies arguing over basics, like how best to feed a baby for instance. I always think to myself honey, feed them…breast, bottle, g-tube – whatever method works best for baby and mommy is the right choice. Inevitably at least one mom of an adult will chime in and remind all of us that it never gets any easier. The pandemic has been one more thing for people to argue about.

If you want to see hot and heavy debates check out any mommy/daddy/physician blogs that dare discuss covid and vaccines in relation to children. The interesting comparison here is that whether discussing the mundane like feeding a baby to the extreme like an unprecedented pandemic, the likes of which have not been seen in a hundred years the goal is still the same. Both sides of the fence just want to do the right things for their kids.  Moms will perpetually worry for the rest of their lives as that just comes with the territory.

I realize we may have played it too safe for too long, but we did our best. I think that is the real takeaway. One thing that unites us as parents is that we all are out there making tough choices, loving our kiddos, and doing our best. We have aging parents and finances – the list of responsibilities is long, and the to-do list is often unending. So, friends, let’s learn to not only support each other but to also give ourselves a little grace too. Parenting is hard. Hell, being a grownup is hard in general. It has always been hard. It will always be hard. I think that we can find solace in that though, common ground that we all share. Our parents made it through, and we will too!