Missing opportunities? Or a chance for empathy
Do you ever have thoughts knocking around your head like bowling pins scattering in perpetual strikes? That's about the state of my mind this past week. Here's a partial reset of the “pins.”
The Spokane teen grand with recent COVID-19 — and underlying asthma — is much better. The other six family currently in the home have not become ill. But the whole thing prevented our grandma weekend from occurring. No munching cookies with her 4- to 12-year-old siblings while reading “The Cow Loves Cookies.” No making gooey orange Jello popcorn balls. No filling bingo cards for prizes or testing wits over Battleship.
What I find disheartening in the novel coronavirus “new normal” is the memories being stolen. Memories are broken into and carted off before they even exist.
Think of it like this — a memory is not a memory until it has happened. With cancellations and postponements of so many gatherings and activities there is a lot not happening. Memories that would have been made are not there — a mirage. We're left with imagining what might have been.
This has caused me a certain amount of sadness the past few days. I can be counted on to err on the sentimental fool side — so I'm picturing how it would be if we hadn't had to cancel Thanksgiving with family in Alaska over COVID-19 concerns. Including time with a friend who couldn't wait to be with us again for this celebration we used to share in our years there. I see us all around the long table. I hear the hum of talk and click of forks. I taste the feast — and feel the laughter — and gaze out the window at the pale sun lighting the frozen lake.
OK — so we're doing something else for Thanksgiving. Still a day for making memories — just different ones.
This leads me to this week's remembrance of our nation's military veterans. How the backtrack from Thanksgiving to Veteran's Day? Like this. Out walking early yesterday morning it dawned on me — literally — that memory heist is a regular occurrence for those in the armed services and their families.
How many times have they missed milestone celebrations and holidays and all kinds of togetherness — not from a pandemic but because of willing sacrifice and service for our country. This thought stopped my crashing bowling pins mid-air. Almost gutter ball silence.
My attitude shifted nearly in an instant. No, I won't be enjoying some of the meaningful traditions in this upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas season. I may not even be with the people I'd hoped to join — or who might have joined me.
But the thousands who serve in our military branches (and many others for many reasons) aren't getting these things, either. The veterans we honor this week have lived through exactly this — and much more.
My pumpkin-flavored “pity pie” has mercifully morphed into a slice of the healthier humble variety. This year I have the privilege — the opportunity — to experience some of that soldier sacrifice of missing memories. There is an empathy. A deepening appreciation for the service of every veteran.