The news of school cancellation came rather abruptly. I didn’t see the writing on the wall so to speak as our county only had three confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of last week. I honestly didn’t believe that all the schools in our state would be closed down for six weeks and pending. I was at the grocery store, mad dashing for non-perishable goods to last us a week when I received the email.
My husband was also told to close up office, grab his computers and work from home. We just moved into a day ranch on five acres. Our house is large and still rather empty. We were faced with a situation that requires the four of us to be home together all at once, working, writing and homeschooling.
We had to think fast and quickly converted our dining room into an office/storage area for my husband. Without a desk, we grabbed a folding camping table from out of our shop to set his computers up on. This left us essentially without use of the kitchen table while my husband is working.
We brainstormed and came up with a solid solution. A few weeks ago my husband bought some lumber from Lowes in which to build shelves in our garage. We grabbed a 4×8 slab of wood and two sawhorses. We created a makeshift homeschooling table in our daylight basement. I spread a table cloth over it and arranged our homeschooling material.
My friends…this is a frightening time. We are facing uncharted territories. The anxiety lies within the unknown. We face an awful virus that is wreaking havoc on the health of our elderly. Businesses are closing down. Schools may be out for the rest of the year. We face losses of income and an economic decline. This is real and it’s difficult. It down right sucks!
My family is not avoiding or making fun of any of the fears and dangers we as a society are facing. But… as we looked at that 4×8 slab of wood and the fact my husband has arranged his computers on a folding camping table, we started to laugh!
We found humor in a situation where we honestly should be crying. If you really think about it….what would crying accomplish? What would allowing ourselves to grow depressed over something out of our control do for us? Absolutely nothing! So, we are weathering this stressful situation with humor in the only way we know how.
I’m not a teacher but I know a little bit about teaching. I don’t have homeschooling material but we have paper, a book on cursive and a mountain of books. We have enough material and life experiences here on our property and within our hearts to keep our family thriving. We have enough toilet paper to, thankfully, last a few months.
Someday, I hope that we can look back and say, “Hey, we survived the great toilet paper shortage of 2020!”
I hope with all my heart my children remember the time I decided to home school them on a rough piece of plywood and we accidentally created an inappropriate mad lib!
I hope when they see a large black bird flying across the sky, they remember the time mom thought it would be a wise decision to read them a scary poem by Edgar Allen Poe.
I hope when they learn about William Shakespeare in High School that they recall the sonnet I read to them during that time we were in quarantine and how weird those words had seemed at the time.
I hope they remember that we laughed and continued to laugh even when things grew rough and life began to feel more uncertain. I hope they remember to be thankful for everything that they have, whether it be good health or toilet paper.
I hope that someday I can sit down with them and finally tell them the truth…that we were scared. That we feared for their safety! That we feared for our future! That we lay awake at night and prayed for our elderly friends and family. That we sought comfort in the form of humor to conquer the demons standing before us.
I hope they realize that in our laughter we were trying to teach them strength.
