We chatted lightly—Eric, Sadie and I—as we watched the Veterans Park bike video. We anticipated future rides on our newly ordered bikes. We schemed. We dreamed. We made a battle plan for logistics, necessary gear, timing.
“This video was taken seven years ago,” Eric said.
“Wonder if the trail has changed much since then,” I said.
A few more moments of video played and Sadie’s little voice piped up.
“Was seven years ago before the coronavirus?”
I stopped and stared at her. Our 6-year-old daughter was measuring time by a virus.
Ante Pandemic. Pandemic. Post pandemic.
Every day and every night she prays, “And dear God, please don’t let anyone else in the world get the virus.”
Our hearts surge with an amen to her words.
I, too, tend to count time by pandemic periods.
First, the Ante Pandemic Period. For me, it began in October of 1971 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington, and ended some time after my spinal surgery on March 4 at Baptist Health Hospital. There, I first heard the medical murmurs of coronavirus; Wuhan, China; wash your hands!; and “It’s here” on March 6.
One week later, I’m home again and it’s March 11, our daughter’s sixth birthday. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, ushering in the Pandemic Period.
Honestly, the Pandemic Period looks very much like my real life. I still home school. I still keep chickens and bake bread. I’m still the semi-reclusive writer.
I believe God gave me a grace period of preparation for our current state of affairs, though. Out of necessity and pain, I lived a type of pandemic lifestyle before the first reported coronavirus death in Santa Clara County, California, on February 6.
Months before we knew of PPE and social distancing and stay-at-home orders, the ghost of an ancient back injury made like a malevolent poltergeist and significantly disrupted my life. The resolution was spinal surgery. In preparation for this and the recovery that would follow, things changed.
I slowed down on writing commitments to make sure I didn’t miss deadlines. I planned ahead to simplify and streamline the processes of our home. I knew that after surgery, I would endure a mandatory three-week hiatus from driving or sitting. In anticipation of serious lifestyle modifications, I made other arrangements for my church and ministry activities. So, my normal had already drawn down business. My daily-ness would pause as I healed, and then I’d move in a wise and gradual return to a slightly modified post-surgical life.
Our local hardware store, Ead’s, is named for the family who founded it. Its current location is just off the Paris Bypass, close to where US 460 becomes 8th Street.
It’s that hometown place where, if people don’t know your name, they certainly know your face. And if they know your name, they might also know you prefer Black & Decker over Ryobi, or leather gloves over cloth. They know which caramel stick is your favorite at the checkout counter and always make sure you are well supplied with paint stir sticks. They have all our paint colors on file and carry our exact kind of furnace filters. They supply us with PVC and drill bits and that special seal kit my pressure canner requires.
They are an authorized Stihl dealer, and that’s what drew me to the store on this first, in-person, Pandemic Period, post-surgery outing. Eric’s chainsaw blade needed sharpening. He’d dropped it off. The pickup landed on my to-do list.
I pulled into the parking lot and sat there for a while. I’d walked into this store many times before, but I just couldn’t figure out how to get out of the car. I couldn’t figure out how to go inside the store and be with people. People who may or may not be infected with the virus. People who may or may not give it to me. After some time, I realized it wasn’t practical to sit there in the car. I mean, at some point, I had to move.
At some point, we will all have to move.
We will all have to figure out how to get out of the car and go into the store.
One day, Lord willing, there will be a Post Pandemic life. We would be wise to consider it in certain measures of caution and healthy fear, with heightened thoughts of hygiene and appropriate distances, but it must be considered.
In Post Pandemic life, we will have that thing called relationship, where the power of a touch will frighten and entice us all at the same time.
One of my writer friends from California, Erendira Ramirez-Ortega (https://erortega.com/) considers Lovely Things and has a monthly newsletter full of her considerings. She asked the question of our expectations after the Pandemic Period ends.
It was hard to even think about.
I shared with her the hardware store story and my concerns about a massive shift in relationship. How do we return to closeness—or, at the very least, nearness—when separation feels so safe? Finally, I said that faith must overcome this fear, and faith is the gift of God, who is completely sovereign. In the Post Pandemic Period, I will trust in Him with more awareness than I am trusting in Him now.
We will one day emerge because we will have gained a measure of trust, won’t we?
On that day when I find I have the courage to reach out and hold a hand that trembles as much as mine, I will learn the bliss of immunity from a multitude of fears. I will mark the true beginning of the Post Pandemic Period in my heart and that starting point will make all the difference in this brave, new world.