Another of John's ironic ornaments peeked out yesterday from behind the unwelcome shoots at the base of a tree we have yet to identify, though it towers over the yard. We really should cut it down (the tree, not the flamingo, which adds a little playful color against the green).
I'm delighted to hear more laughter outside the garden gate these days, especially in the late afternoons, as parents take turns using the street as a makeshift playground. Everybody needs a break. It brings to mind a conversation I had this weekend with some of the many teachers in my family: It is not the homework kids will remember about this pandemic - not the math, not the science (well, hopefully the science). Parents can let go of the stress of trying to keep their children on task with homework, if it gets too hard. What the kids will take into adulthood are memories of how their parents cope, how the world works - or doesn't - in a crisis.
This bears out my own experience, the childhood fragments that have lasted a lifetime: a hurricane - Mom got us to a safe place even as shards of glass landed in the baby carriage (which sibling it was in the carriage, I don't remember, but I remember the glitter of the glass and my mother's steady calm); John Glenn's first journey into space - I remember the teachers' worry and subsequent awe; the Cuban missile crisis - an event which probably would have completely passed me by were it not for the fact that my father was in Brazil at the time, and Mom worried for his safety - she controlled her fear for our sake; Kennedy's death - the whispers and tears of teachers in the hall, my father's silent grief; the horror my mother and her friends expressed when they couldn't turn the TV off fast enough to shield us from the sight of Jack Ruby dying live.
There's this, too: I remember the day we stood in line at the Swarthmore Public Library to get our first oral polio vaccine. I was ten years old and thrilled that it was my mother encouraging me to eat a sugar cube (fruity tasting, as I remember). I can still recall the women chattering as they stood in line - the joy they felt in being able to protect their kids.
Sometimes as parents, we act braver than we feel. The current long period of isolation, fear and uncertainty is going to test that fortitude beyond anything I experienced when my kids were young. I do worry about the strain this is having on my grandkids. There are days I can't imagine how their parents cope. But I trust them to know and act on the belief that learning happens all the time, every day, no matter what, and that the important stuff will last a lifetime.