By Shannon Williams
Well it is Sunday evening late and it has been a long day, so as I was trying to make a final decision on what to write about, I kept wondering why I was so tired. You see today was a day that I was with two generations. We drove into the Bay area to pick up our 4-year-old grandson, (who will soon be five, a fact he will tell you several times and that his birthday is in September LOL!). When he got out of the car, the first thing I notice was that he was wearing a little mask. I told him how proud I was that he was doing his part to keep everyone well. Then he began to tell me about “the sickness” … “we all have to wear a mask everywhere we go, but if you are outside you don’t have to.” He continued to make comments about “the sickness” throughout the day.

We had lunch at a restaurant the family has dined at several times, and he had questions about why we did not have real silverware, when we answered due to the virus, you could just see a little sadness in his eyes. He told us that he was starting his first day of school later this month, but he was “going to school on his tablet at his house” but would meet his new friends later in the school year. We took him to see my husband’s mother (his great grandmother) who is in assisted living, so I got to see COVID through the eyes of another generation (she too will tell you she has a birthday coming up in December and she will be 90). When we visit with her we sit outside and look at each other through the window, using our cell phones to communicate. Jo (my mother in law) was thrilled to see one of her many great grandchildren and kept saying, I just want to grab him and kiss him all over. You could see the sadness in her eyes. The virus has cut her off from so much. She needs her hair fixed and would love to have her nails and toes polished with a pretty pink. However, all she really wanted was to kiss her great grandson.

Two generations and each dealing with how much life has changed in the past months. During the day, I was on the phone off and on with several of my siblings (I am one of five children born to my parents). My mother, who will soon be 92, lives in a senior community in independent apartments. We know it is time to move her to assisted living, but we have put it off due to COVID. Today again, I had those hard conversations with my siblings about what we should do, at what point is the benefit of assisted living worth the risk of a higher risk of COVID. Each day we are all facing decisions about the virus, who to believe as far as our leaders and the health community, what news station we feel gives us the truth, so much knowledge for us to feel like we still really do not know the truth. (Full disclaimer here, I am doing my best just to talk about the decision making process, not which decision is right or wrong). It is America and we are all free to make a decision about what we believe and whom we believe. THAT IS what freedom is, so at the end of the day I am just tired of COVID, I want it to be over, I don’t want to have to make hard decisions, I want to HUG again and have people over to my home again. These are choices I have made about how I will deal with COVID, they may not be the right ones for you, but they are the ones that for now I am making. So my wish for us all is that we can find some peace with any of the decisions we made about how we live during this time and that we all give each other grace to have their own decision. America was founded on wanting to live where we all could have our own beliefs, not a country that we all have the same belief system. So let’s embrace that we all have different views and thoughts on “the sickness “and continue to hope and pray for an end to it all. So I am taking my tired self to bed, please BEE kind to yourself and get enough sleep!!

Till next time Bee Kind to someone, and let them know how they have touched your life.

[Aug-10-2020]