Keeping On The Sunny Side

photo credit: Amber Capron

Growing up on a wooded dead-end road, only the sirens from a nearby fire station could break our secluded spell. Backyard games stalled, patio talk paused, music turned low. We delivered cookies on holidays to the cheerful volunteers who showed us their firetrucks and ladders. I’d picture them playing cards or checking equipment, always waiting for the next fire—a job to do and subconsciously, even restfully, on full alert.

I sense that spirited firefighting commitment everywhere. We’re well-aware of the courageous frontline workers in hospitals, grocery stores, and public transportation. Look more closely. Caregivers tend to those in need, acting mostly alone and quietly, while wrapped in pandemic confinement. Steady in the midst of upside-down living, they imagine, create, and seize possibility. Exuding mighty grit, whether up close or from a distance, they don’t miss a beat. Caregivers stay ready and ramped, exhausted and worried—trying to think ahead in the stiff wind of ever-changing hurdles. And those already physically and/or mentally tested, forced into deeper isolation by a pandemic, adapt like champs.

Listen in with me. Heroes.

A woman explains the shift to virtual visits with his health care providers to her Alzheimer’s patient spouse, while moment by moment battling his “increased isolation and confusion.” She repeats and repeats the rationale for mask-wearing, deals daily both with long waits on hold with insurance companies and shortages of essentials such as distilled water. Though “at times I lose it, at times I don’t want to get out of bed,” she concocts virtual tea parties with faraway friends, settling into the mutual calm of reading aloud and gradually appreciating quiet. Plus, a side benefit, now her search for lost items narrows to either the house or car.

A devoted daughter and her homebound dad, living on Atlantic and Pacific coasts, plan and thrive on her long visits home a few times a year. Traveling the miles between them becomes increasingly risky, and they’re deprived of a reliable gauge of future safety. Undeterred, she investigates any way she can help with his care, guides his in-person caregivers meticulously, researches possible side effects of medications, and doggedly suggests exercises. “Our calls and letters grow more frequent, precious, and poignant – each one possibly the last.”

Another daughter, caring for and spending nights with her immunocompromised mother, boasts: “I don’t have to decline invitations because there aren’t any, so I’m working on my cooking (and take-out) skills.” Sure, she loves returning to her own home for an occasional weekend. At times her spirit sags, weary and discouraged, sapped by frequent trips to overcrowded emergency rooms. But she’s happy overseeing her mother’s wellbeing and finds the hardest thing not hugging her—their pandemic embraces strangely infrequent and hesitant. “Being able to wrap your arms around the one you love is huge.” What does her mother say? “Hope is the word that resonates within me. And no words can ever express my love for her.”

Another stalwart, who endures two emergency cardiac hospitalizations during the pandemic, reports “stress, anxiety, and loneliness” as the isolation drifts from weeks’ to years’ duration. Still, “sometimes I feel overwhelming gratitude that those I love are still in this world.” And what’s the post-plague outlook? “We will all be different people. Little wiser, more aware…. Peace.”

Meet a father of three whom I taught to play tennis when we were both young(er). Able to work from home long before the pandemic, he nevertheless has twice faced life-threatening events. (What a phone call.)

“After my biking accident in August, surviving a traumatic brain injury and shaking off the effects of a coma, I’m completely different. Not to sound corny, but for the first time I am awake and no longer taking life for granted. I’m still here. The world is not about me—and I’ve learned to listen. Once in a while, I miss Colorado skiing and river rafting with my buddies and our coolers of beer. But my eyesight is improving and I’m working again. Then, damn. As I’m taking ornaments off the Christmas tree, my son runs into the room yelling “The town’s on fire!” I was wearing shorts on a 60-degree day in Superior. Immediately, in 100 mph winds and heavy smoke, we evacuate first to the other side of town and then on to Denver. Days later when we return, our house is still there, somehow—25-feet away, houses completely gone, shells of cars scattered in the streets. Hey! Forgot to tell you. That note you wrote me dated December 27? Appeared in my mailbox January 10—how about that? Your timing’s still good.”

photo credit: Maria Ruth

Lace up your boots and walk with Wendell Berry through “The Cold,” trekking from wintry solitude to blooming union. Using this time well, each of us knows ourselves better, “Your life withdrawn into / your own keeping.” Snowily suspended, still facing toward who we love, oh don’t we know it’s “good also to melt.”

Look in the mirror and wink, all you “Heroes.” David Bowie remembers those yearning while separated by the Berlin Wall. A toast to the countless every-single-day caregiving heroes, and those in their care, battling pandemic duress. “Just for one day,” a celebratory, anticipatory round for us all.

For Drew, an old and now new “Rocky Mountain High.” John Denver strums you on your way. “Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams / Seeking grace in every step he takes.”

You know. I know. Drew and his neighbors know. “ There’s a dark and a troubled side of life.” But we also know that “There’s a bright and a sunny side too.” The Carter Family picks us up and we follow June’s lead to “Keep on the Sunny Side.”

photo credit: Eleanor Maxwell

The sunny side melts. Good. Puddles.

Bright. Coming.

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