What Else Do You Do in a Pandemic?

Wow, what a year 2020 has been so far.  In January, my friend Sara died from ovarian cancer.  We shared a birthday and had been friends since high school.  I went to her funeral in West Texas.  On the way, my dad called me.  He'd had surgery that day and I didn't know.  Next came my 51st birthday.  I love my birthday!  It was perfect.  My desk was decorated and I had a banner and crown to wear, it doesn't get better.  Except it did, with the cake waiting for me when I got home.  What a great day!

The next day my sister called and our dad had died sometime that night.  She had just found him.  Well, hell.  We headed up to Missouri and said our farewells.  I got to meet family I'd never known and loved spending time with my brother and sister. 

Then came my niece's wedding!  What a great time and I loved spending time with my family I hadn't seen.  My aunt was nervous about traveling because we'd started hearing about this coronavirus.  I thought she was a little nuts and didn't think it was a risk.  She wasn't flying into DFW and the only people who had it were isolated on the air force base, what was there to worry about?

March!  Here comes spring break, my trip to Missouri to help my brother and sister clean out our dad's office, Zach's trip to Disney, and a week off work!  During the first week, this coronavirus was really making the news and it was spreading.  They closed Italy!  I mean that's like the beginning of a joke. Did you hear they closed Italy?  And if I was more clever I'd have a joke to go with that.

Humm, maybe I wouldn't fly to Missouri but drive instead.  The week before spring break came and Mike was irritated I'd still consider going on my trip.  He thinks my driving is horrible and well I do tend to get sleepy on long trips.  Zach was scheduled to leave on Thursday.  Wednesday I called the superintendent to see if they still planned on sending the kids on this trip.  They were making plans to make sure they had plenty of germx and washed their hands a lot but the trip was on for Thursday. 

Thursday afternoon, after Zach was on his way we started hearing we might not come back after spring break and needed to make sure all students had passwords in case we had to go to distance learning. And my kid was on a bus on his way to Disney!