Coffee – then adulting.

What a week it’s been. I’ve been at the pharmacy more than my kids have been in school. Between retrieving prescriptions, buying Covid tests, and various other medicines for allergies and cold symptoms, you could say the local Walgreen’s knows me well.

Unfortunately, my daughter contracted Covid right when she turned 13. Not the best way to ring in her teenage years, but we made the best of it. It will always be a unique memory that we’ll “cherish.”

When she gets sick, she doesn’t bounce back quickly like I used to. I remember being sick maybe once or twice a year during school. I rarely stayed home unless it was something serious like the flu or a stomach bug. However, my daughter seems to get pummeled by sickness far more often.

It’s almost predictable that September will usher in some kind of illness to our home after a relatively mild summer. With the kids returning to school, it’s like welcoming back a wave of germs. Preparing for cold season has become part of our annual routine, navigating allergies, colds, and viruses that often accompany the back-to-school rush.

Flashbacks to 2020

Speaking of sickness, my daughter said her birthday reminded her of the tumultuous 2020. You know, when we were donning masks and rarely seeing people. We sat on our deck to celebrate her birthday. Her grandparents traveled from Florida to see us. They received the news she had Covid when they were 5 hours away. They were able to talk to her from several feet away outside.

This past week has made me think back to Covid for other reasons. We have been watching the TV show, “The Pitt,” and while it lacks the exaggerated drama of Grey’s Anatomy and some other medical shows, it’s been recognized for its take on real life in the medical field, especially post-Covid.

But I’m also reminded of the pandemic because it was one of the rare and fleeting times we, as a country, all seemed like we were cheering for the same side. We celebrated the push for vaccine development; we lauded doctors, nurses, and all first-responders so much so that people would literally bang pots and pans out of their apartment windows for them, or deliver meals, or drive by and honk and cheer for them. I’m not saying we don’t appreciate them anymore, but there was (or at least it seemed so in our area) an atmosphere of unified love. Now, there’s division on so many health topics – medicine, vaccinations, and who’s to blame for Covid, etc.

I bring this up because last week we also saw the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and it spotlighted how divided our nation has become (not that we didn’t know that already). But right after that was also the anniversary of 9/11 – another reminder of how times of tragedy and crisis can also bring us together.

I pray we don’t have another tragedy but can use past lessons to see how we are stronger and better when we shine a light on the humanity that exists, rather than the hate.