Fabulous News

Pam and I just received the fabulous news that all of our kids and all of their dogs will be spending six whole days here with us for Christmas. Plans had been up in the air because of the C word. That’s right, here at the Tempest, I have made the executive decision to use a capital C when referring to the viral elephant which has taken up lodging in every room of our lives. I’m tired of the word, tired of speaking it, tired of writing it. Anyway, news that all of us will be together for nearly a week is fabulous indeed. To prepare for the week, we have instituted a sort of quarantine-lite here at Dunnevant Central. It’s not a real quarantine or even a lockdown, more like a strategic withdrawal from our public lives. It works this way.

At work, it will be a mask-wearing affair with limited hours and interaction. Church will be live-streamed, ie...sofa church. Grocery store trips will be strategic, rather than random. All other store visits will be of the curb-side pickup variety. Interaction with friends and family over the next couple of weeks will be front porch affairs. Last night, for example, we invited my sister and her husband over to our back deck for a fire in my awesome solo stove. It was great to see their faces. Unfortunately, a quick glance at the weather forecast for this week doesn’t afford many more opportunities for outdoor meetings. Bad weather makes inventions like FaceTime and Marco Polo invaluable. In addition to these magical new communication tools, my wife’s feverish creativity has turned to very old communication tools as she plans out what Christmas with C will look like. There will be pajama-wearing, doughnut-eating Christmas caroling, front porch gift exchanges, to go along with some sort of digital, virtual, talent show/singalong thing she has flying around in that head of hers.

None of us want this. I hate the isolation. I hate not being in a crowded house with 25 members of my big, loud family. I hate the cloud that’s hanging over all of us, the realization that if one of us gets C everything gets blown up. But, this is the world we live in right now. There is nothing to be done about it besides being as smart as we can, doing everything we can to lower our odds of getting the dang thing.

Meanwhile, I can’t stop thinking about all the front line doctors, nurses, and hospital workers out there who are battling C non stop. What will their Christmas be like? What about the workers at Pfizer toiling around the clock to produce the vaccine, the truck-drivers on the road at all hours in horrible weather racing to deliver it to us? When will they get to spend time with their families? It occurs to me that compared to so many other people in this country right now, we have it easy. While the heroes all around us are working their fingers to the bone, I’ll be in my beautiful house surrounded by my beautiful kids trying to figure out what to do with these guys...

2020 is not the new normal. It will not always be like this. A day is coming when the curse of C will lift. It won’t be tomorrow, next week or next month, but the day will come when we can all embrace those we love without hesitation or fear. Until then, don’t lose heart.