The virus has us all in our homes spending time with family. Though for someone like me who is an essential worker life is pretty much the same as always. Go to work, come home, run, make dinner, shower, go to bed. It is a simple life, though I have to admit I will miss my son playing baseball this year. We have yet to be told that it is off, but right now I am guessing that it just is. My heart breaks for us, no prom (my youngest daughter is a senior this year) no graduation, no baseball, no swimming pool. Life seems pretty meek. Yet I watch my children and they are still smiling. (well as long as the internet is working) They are still laughing and helping each other and we have fallen into a somewhat normal day to day life.
Maybe we are the lucky ones. We have always lived a simple life, We cook most of our meals at home, we only started traveling in the last year so not having big trips is nothing new for us. Sure we miss our weekly shopping trips and going out to have dinner. Yet itt just doesn’t feel so different for us to say home. The other day I was sitting in my favorite place, my front porch. We have this old wicker table and chairs. They were my great aunts, she used them in her dinning room. When I got the set it was over ten years ago. Then it was in good shape but years of sitting outside on my porch has really done a number on it. I repainted the set two years ago trying to make it last. For which it has, but as I sat outside with my kids the other day I realized that the set was just too big for the space. Really only three people could comfortably sit and visit. It was then I decided to make a change. So I got online and ordered a new set. Here is what I didn’t think about. The chair that I sat in was where my husband would always sit. It was his place, it was nothing for him and I to wake up every morning and head outside to sit. He was a smoker and he never smoked in our home. So we would be outside. The porch was the selling point to our home. We love it out there.
Yesterday the new furniture arrived and it took us a while but we got it put together and then started moving the old out and putting the new in. As we were putting the finishing touches on my two oldest daughters and I had a very raw conversation. One had stated that she was glad her father had passed away before this virus. Because if he would have gotten it he would have died a terrible death. Let me take a minuet to explain this. Ed was a big guy. Every bit of two hundred and seventy five pounds, he smoked, he didn’t work out, he didn’t eat healthy. It was only in the last nine months of his life that he started to take care of himself. Yet what my daughter said was the truth. This virus would not have stopped him from going to work, he was a railroader so his position would have been considered essential as well. I think he would have had the attitude that many young people have, “not me, I’m going to be fine”. It would have made me mad that his attitude would be that way, but I wouldn’t say anything. I would just worry. It was odd to hear my daughter say that she was glad her dad was already gone, and then to have the other agree only showed how mature they were. How well they knew their father. How well they knew their mother. He would have gotten it. We all know this, we would have all waited for him to come home sick. He wouldn’t have, he would have suffered in a lonely hotel somewhere not believing that he was ill, and he would have went to work and died. Instead he was doing what he loved when he passed and he was gone within minutes he didn’t suffer. For whatever reason that has brought comfort to us.
It is odd where you find your blessings. Yet with our simple life, we seem to see them quite easily. We thought nothing about taking his chair and placing it in our shed. Funny I still can’t get rid of the chair but it is put away. We placed the new furniture in its place and then sat outside and enjoyed the simple life that we have always had. People talk about reconnecting with family during this time. What is odd is that I don’t have to do that. The tragedy of his death did that for us already. We were a tight family before, now we are even closer. My kids are ready to start their lives, to leave the nest. I reassure them every day that I too am ready for that. Their brother and I will be just fine. It is time, yet it is hard to just walk away from our little bubble. I am sure they have the thoughts of “what if” and I am doing my best to teach them that we cannot live in the world of “what ifs”. That we must live in the world of hope and take joy in the moments of life. Not the past, not the wish of the future but in the very moment. For that is what Ed and my life was full of. The beautiful little moments that made life beautifully full of happiness, joy, and love. Don’t get me wrong we had big moments too, but it is the little ones, the simple life that adds up to a beautiful love story of us.
The Journey of a Lioness 
Your daughters are wiser beyond their years. They see things, raw and hard-hitting, which however in hindsight make sense strangely. And you are right, the small things in life add so much flavour to it š
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Parikhit, you are correct, my daughters have wisdom beyond their years. Maybe it’s because of Ed’s death. Or maybe they are just next in the long line of wise Irish women. I am lucky to be their mother.
Dee
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And I am sure they consider themselves very lucky to have your as their mother sheltering and protecting them š
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