Help is Just Around the Corner
Part 2
During this worldwide pandemic, a time when my physical contact with friends and family have been curtailed, I can feel quite alone and disconnected.
It has been almost a year since friends have come to join us for a weekend visit on the pond. Almost a year since I’ve gone to see a newly released movie at our local theater. And almost a year since I’ve hugged my only sister.
The bloom of virtual meet-ups with friends and family has faded. Most adults I know are spending much of their time in online meetings as they work from home. Even my grandkids who, last spring, happily joined our weekday afternoon calls to connect with me and their cousins, find their days are now consumed by remote learning.
In the midst of all of this, my 98-year-old Aunt Ingrid, our family matriarch, died. A pandemic funeral adds another layer of complexity to the family traditions of bidding farewell to a loved one.
In the past funerals have been a time for all the cousins to stop what we are doing and come together in the town where our parents were raised. If not for the pandemic, it would have been a time to share, and compare our Aunt Ingrid stories that we accumulated over our lifetimes. Instead, I listened to her funeral, at home, as it was broadcast over the Internet.
I left Colorado after my daughter’s surgery (See The Joy of Interdependency) thinking that I would never forget the lesson that I had learned, that I am never alone. I promised myself that I would always remember that people can, and do, show up when I need help. The pandemic has not exactly provided me with opportunities to practice this mindset. I can’t just pop over to a friend, or family member’s house for a cup of coffee and a dose of kitchen table wisdom when I’m feeling down, or discouraged.
On the afternoon of my aunt’s funeral, I went for a walk hoping it would raise my spirits. As I walked along, thoughts of my nephew and his kids came to mind. I hadn’t seen them since last spring. I smiled thinking about how much I missed our, never dull, conversations while his kids ran wild around the house creating an always interesting sideshow.
A minute after thinking of him, his truck filled with his four kids pulling a big trailer, appeared around a sharp corner on the narrow dirt road where I was walking. A road that was definitely not on his usual route home. Seeing this truckload of smiling faces appear unexpectedly was the healing balm that my heart needed that afternoon.
It served as a reminder that I am not in this alone. That on a grey, cold wintery day, help can appear, seemingly out of nowhere, around a sharp corner on a dirt road.
To be continued…
With Love & Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
