I’m not sure where the ten-year challenge started, but it stirred something inside me that prompted me to write. We’ve been pretty quiet over here in our corner of the world. I wrote you all a Christmas letter, but the cards didn’t get made. So, the letter never got posted. I’ve sat down to write other times but often felt words came up short or just didn’t combine in a way that I’d like to put my thoughts out into the world.
When I started to see the ten-year challenge photos pop up, I looked back at our photos from 10 years ago. Graham was a month old. Grace was just about to turn six. Kevin and I look tired in the pictures but so much younger. Grace looks more portable, and I never had trouble carrying her or worried that I shouldn’t put her in the bathtub without Kevin at home (just in case I had trouble getting her out).
She was in preschool at that point. We hadn’t dealt with school in the same way we have since. We didn’t know her immune system was compromised at that point. We had been in our new house, that we built for her, for a little over a year. We weren’t worried about her sodium levels. I’ve realized she’s had something like 20 surgeries in the last 10 years as I reflect here.
Graham had yet to utter a word. We had no idea of the adventure he would bring to our lives. I didn’t know who Adam West was. We hadn’t yet had to divide and conquer. He didn’t know that our family was different. I remember taking him to visit Grace at preschool around that time, and one of the girls there squealed, “He’s such a cute Teddy Graham!” and I thought, “damn, we didn’t think of that as a possible nickname!”
I know we struggled then. I can look back through this very blog and understand that, but as with most reminiscing, it feels like the good old days.
Today, we constantly find ourselves struggling. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again… the pandemic has forced us into some very complex parenting dilemmas. In a world that seems to be moving on…regardless of the consequences, talking about how this is our new normal…I struggle to accept that a new normal is so dangerous for Grace.
She’s been out of school since early December. We pulled her out to stay home initially because she was scheduled for surgery, and we needed to be sure to keep her healthy so she could have it (just an exposure could have canceled the procedure). A mask mandate at the school was lifted overnight, and we were forced to decide if it was right to keep Grace there. Have you seen that meme…” That horrifying moment when you’re looking for an adult, and you realize you ARE an adult. So, you look around for an older adult, someone successfully adulting. An adultier adult.” Kevin and I are the adultier adults- there’s no helpline, no one expert, it’s all about our collective gut and instinct. There’s plenty of guidance – but no guidance about what to do when it seems the world around you isn’t following guidance. (The day after we decided to keep her home one of the aides in her room tested positive.) After the surgery, it was almost Christmas and more people were sick, so we said she would be back after the first of the year. That didn’t happen either. Yesterday the COVID positivity rate in Polk County was 28.38%. She is, in effect, stuck at home until something changes to bring that rate down…and down quite a ways.
And here’s the thing…she’s stuck because her immune system is compromised. She’s stuck because if she were to contract COVID, it would be challenging for hospitals to provide the level of care she requires. In non-pandemic times Kevin and I are still her primary caregivers even when she is in a hospital (the difference now is the lack of open beds, rationed care, and visitor/caregiver restrictions). She’s stuck because too many people aren’t protected. She is stuck through no fault of her own.
On top of my reflections based on the ten-year challenge, there was a moment in church yesterday that grabbed me and I keep thinking about. The minister talked about the process we go through to live out our faith. In his sermon, he quoted Ephesians 4:14-15. It reads “Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.” He said something quickly about everyone deserving the chance to grow – it was not one of the main points of his sermon – but it got me.
In this pandemic, we are withholding from Grace the things that help her to grow. Zoom school is not the same as being there in person. Zoom church is not the same as being there in person. Watching dance and reading books about dance is not the same as being at dance. You get the idea.
There are already so many things that she cannot do. We’ve been forced to take away the things she can. That’s sad.
The little girl who was almost six has experienced so much in eight of the last 10 years. The last two years have stunted that growth and I’m anxious to get her back on a track that helps her grow. I joke that she fake sleeps through some of her school classes – while crafty on her part, it’s really not funny.
Ten years from now – when she’s 25, almost 26 – I want to be able to say that we exposed her to everything we could to help her grow. She deserves that as much as anyone else.
Joy