Mom's voice during the pause
Hello from our new world to yours. Where I live, we went from everyday life to significant restrictions, closures, and advisories in less than a week.
My family lived through the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003, while the rest of North America registered it as a blip. Friends in the medical community said this was a dress rehearsal, and I believed them—but nothing prepared me for the present.
On Sunday, when new restrictions were announced, I began to hear my mother's voice.
She has but one directive: "Toughen up". She speaks of the war years—the men gone, rationing, the knock on the door that alters a family forever, and reminds me that in many countries things were far worse: bombing, mass murder, extreme privation. Toughen up so you help those struggling, and do your work.
She reminds me of a time even earlier, the Depression, when privation struck with a similar disorienting immediacy. The challenge was not just four family meals from one small chicken, but how to manage joblessness, interrupted education, stark responsibilities. Her sister Magdelene opened her door one morning to her sister-in-law standing there with her four children and their suitcases; her husband vanished overnight.
Mom says, "When ease returns, you will appreciate it like never before."
Of course there are differences: during WWII, people congregated in faith communities and with friends, to draw strength and support. They were united in their commitment to preserve freedoms; the enemy had a name and face, not a taxonomy.
Throughout the Depression, schools stayed open, and citizens could move about freely, though few could afford travel. Governments funded capital works and cultural projects.
Few who witnessed these events are still alive; we have refugees and displaced persons among us, but we view their experience as something that happened to them, elsewhere.
Now it's our turn. Our tranquillity has been rent, our prosperity dented, our mobility curtailed, our fears fanned, and we witness a spectrum of suffering, from loneliness to death.
It's not a good idea to let Mom live in my head too long, because she suggests organizing the many bookshelves, making napkins from that tablecloth we never use. She wonders if a young friend who has been laid off needs anything. She is surprised to hear I'm in the category told to stay in. But you're allowed to go for a walk, she says, eyeing my dirty windows.
She's right, as usual. Completing a simple task reinforces agency, and reduces anxiety.
She leans towards me, puts an affectionate hand on my arm, and offers one last piece of advice: "And laugh when you can. We did."
My family lived through the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003, while the rest of North America registered it as a blip. Friends in the medical community said this was a dress rehearsal, and I believed them—but nothing prepared me for the present.
On Sunday, when new restrictions were announced, I began to hear my mother's voice.
She has but one directive: "Toughen up". She speaks of the war years—the men gone, rationing, the knock on the door that alters a family forever, and reminds me that in many countries things were far worse: bombing, mass murder, extreme privation. Toughen up so you help those struggling, and do your work.
She reminds me of a time even earlier, the Depression, when privation struck with a similar disorienting immediacy. The challenge was not just four family meals from one small chicken, but how to manage joblessness, interrupted education, stark responsibilities. Her sister Magdelene opened her door one morning to her sister-in-law standing there with her four children and their suitcases; her husband vanished overnight.
 |
| At age 85 |
Of course there are differences: during WWII, people congregated in faith communities and with friends, to draw strength and support. They were united in their commitment to preserve freedoms; the enemy had a name and face, not a taxonomy.
Throughout the Depression, schools stayed open, and citizens could move about freely, though few could afford travel. Governments funded capital works and cultural projects.
Few who witnessed these events are still alive; we have refugees and displaced persons among us, but we view their experience as something that happened to them, elsewhere.
Now it's our turn. Our tranquillity has been rent, our prosperity dented, our mobility curtailed, our fears fanned, and we witness a spectrum of suffering, from loneliness to death.
It's not a good idea to let Mom live in my head too long, because she suggests organizing the many bookshelves, making napkins from that tablecloth we never use. She wonders if a young friend who has been laid off needs anything. She is surprised to hear I'm in the category told to stay in. But you're allowed to go for a walk, she says, eyeing my dirty windows.
She's right, as usual. Completing a simple task reinforces agency, and reduces anxiety.
She leans towards me, puts an affectionate hand on my arm, and offers one last piece of advice: "And laugh when you can. We did."
Comments
I guess my life so far has been so sheltered (I purposely organized it so it's as non-eventful as possible) that my first instinct when anything out of the ordinary happens is to freak out. I often ask myself what you would do in similar circumstances, because my parents (who are your age) are the ones who freak out first (and not just about this virus, but about everything) so they scare the bajesus out of me even if I was (semi)calm to start out with.
Thank you for your posts. Hugs from Slovenia. Živa
We now have a viral bomb exploding in our world. Can't be heard. Can't be seen. But the devastation it brings will change today's generations in ways we can't quite yet fully comprehend.
My long gone mother's words come back to me now, too. Whenever I was low or upset she would say, "Keep your pecker* up and carry on."
*Brit slang for nose.
Love your final image!
And then there is that most prosperous country in the Americas that has no real health system... Hope that changes, and no, that is not anti-US.
Thank you so much for the dose of sanity.
Like another commenter, I remember the things my parents and grandparents lived through: World Wars, Korea, The Depression, They were all intimately familiar with death, loss, tragedy, and it reminds me how s truly privileged and protected our lives, at least in a certain part of the world, has become. We can do this. Two of my grandparents lost siblings to the 1918 Spanish flu. My late husbands family lost everything when they left Austria before WWI except for two small suitcases of clothes for the four of them. But they were always grateful to have escaped and been given the opportunity to begin again. At the moment I feel grateful that I can stay in, that my at-risk family members are staying in, and that I can hope that we will all do the best we can and pull together as needed.
A friend in Mexico has explained that the Day of the Dead is not ghoulish, but refers to the proximity of the Dead and the Living and the idea (interestingly, also shared with Celtic peoples) that there is a time of the year when the borders between the two fade into the mist.
"Our grandparents were asked to go to war - we're being asked to sit on the couch. I think we can do it!"
Kind of sums it up. It sucks, I'm bored, gaining weigh from cooking too much and I miss my friends - but if that's all I have to worry about I am a very lucky person!
Thank you for helping us to remember how well off we really are compared to many - and that's not to diminish the worry that many have for family and friends. Hang in there.