Eight Rotations Around the Sun, Covid-19 Edition

Dear Lily,

We are on day 22 of a shelter-in-place directive. We just finished our third week of remote learning/homeschool/unschooling or whatever you want to call our current method of education. Your father has been working out of our home office, my classes have been moved entirely to an online platform, you take your ballet classes via Zoom and your piano lessons through FaceTime. Softball has been canceled, vacations postponed, and you converse with your teacher through Google meetups.  

Basically, it’s what Lin-Manuel Miranda belted out in Hamilton “Til the World Turned Upside Down” Indeed Hamilton, Indeed.

We are here with a pandemic sweeping away all traces of normalcy, and honestly, I’m doing my fair share of unraveling. And you, sweet bumblebee, continue to shine your bright light into the dark days, making our house joyful by infusing love and laughter in all that you do. At eight years old, you do cartwheels across any open space; you practice your balancé en tournant ballet steps while setting the dinner table, you are forever asking for manicures and pedicures, are constantly making rainbow loom jewelry, obsessed with all things Alexander Hamilton, and are relentlessly asking for Harry Potter trivia.

Although coronavirus has been keeping people apart through social distancing, communities have been coming together in their time of need. All over the world, acts of kindness and solidarity have raised spirits. Thousands of New Yorkers in quarantine stood on their porches and near their windows to applaud first responders and health care workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak. This poignant clapping tribute has erupted worldwide in Italy, Spain, and India. There is an outpouring of gratitude.

In his address before the Urbi et Orbi blessing in Rome in late March, Pope Francis (I am going to insert here, the day your father and I were going to be in Rome to see him, ahem) reminded us, “Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.” These acts may seem small when measured against the weight of the world’s sufferings, but we are often blind to the power of simple things. We may be stuck at home for the next few months, but we will continue to infuse joy in our days through our read-aloud of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We’ll find hikes with beautiful wildflowers and recount stories of imagination as we climb. We’ll lay in the front yard and take in the fresh air and we’ll sit together at the dinner table to count our blessings. We’ll dance in the playroom and eat popcorn snuggled in front of the fire. We will love each other well, fall short, and start again the next day.

I guess what I’m trying to say to you is, these seemingly insignificant acts of love have the power to make life more beautiful through this crisis. And when we reach the other side, small acts of love and kindness will continue to be what makes life worth living.

I love you more than all the stars in the sky and all the water in the ocean.

Love, Momma