If ever there was a perfect Class of 2024 party favor, why wouldn’t it be a positive Covid test?
Covid? Wait, we’re still doing that? Evidently, yes. If I’d paid closer attention to the universe’s trajectory over the last eight weeks, I might have anticipated Covid as the wrap-up to its chaos. Perhaps I’d even have had the essentials on hand. Instead, we were very much unprepared.
Last Wednesday seemed to be a fairly normal day until it ended fairly abnormally and included, among other things, a one-sided blowup that included the words “Irresponsible Parents!” Those words were launched with the speed of a missile minutes after our eldest child monitored a Covid test that they insisted I take.
Irresponsible parents?!? I mean, seriously, how have neither of our children figured out that we are all just winging this whole parenting gig?
Covid: 2; Irresponsible Parents: 0
The last eight weeks have not been easy in our home. Mid-April, we returned from an absolutely blissful spring break refreshed and ready to dive into that final push toward our youngest’s high school graduation. In addition to that final push, we also prepped for the annual adjustment that comes with the return of a college student and the summer craze that comes with a household full of people on the go. What we weren’t prepared for was the discovery that our ailing parent count had doubled the very day we returned from that blissful spring break.
The graduation push? Admittedly, as parents of a Class of 2020 graduate, we had no idea just how much mental space that push to a “normal” graduation would take up.
Don’t we just scan our email every morning for a list of canceled events? Wait, what? All events are proceeding as planned? All of them? What? But that’s so many events. What?
Shortly after our return home from those delightful days onboard the Disney Wish, I sat the family at the kitchen table and proudly passed out tasks. Asking for help has never been my strong point but even I knew that the span from April 9th to June 8th was going to be a doozy. Look at me! Asking for help! Good for me! Hooray! Evidently, my family was so shocked to witness this request that they promptly forgot the entire event upon leaving the table.
Apologies to those still waiting for graduation announcements. What are your thoughts on Empty Nest announcements?
In addition to distributing to-do’s, I pleaded with my people to tread softly–no surprises until mid-June; please and thank you. We did not need extra stress. I did not need the extra stress. Be cool. Please, be cool. It was a hilarious request, in hindsight. Baby adults do not see surprises in the same spirit that adult-adults do. Baby adults see pop-up items as critical, non-negotiable moments that MUST happen. From spontaneous cross-country visits with friends to suprise final exams to forgotten directives to missing graduation wear to just plain checking out on, well, everything…my people did not play it cool.
When I say we crawled to that graduation finish line, I am not exaggerating.
Rich and I have felt pulled to be in multiple places as we’ve balanced the attention need to each generation that we are sandwiched between. We each navigate the bumpy road of our older generation solo while doing our best to support one another. We have juggled trips and events planned when none of these surprises were anticipated. I had a surgery scheduled. Rich had a few work trips on the calendar. Commitments made when we were unaware that our calendar would also include a crisis here or there. Certainly all just bad luck, but being cool seemed to become more challenging daily.
When our youngest finally tossed that mortarboard sky-high last weekend, it took with it much of the weight we’d been carrying. We’d done it. We made it to the finish line. We could finally put the Class of 2024 chaos behind us. The list of graduation parties was all but complete with just one left to attend–ours. Invitations had gone out (Sort of. As it turns out, they’d mostly gone out. Apologies again). Food was ordered and delivered. Decorations went up. And that weight, oh how nice it felt to have it lifted!
I’m not sure when the first sneeze arrived in our home but we paid little attention to it–a sneeze, after all was nothing by this point. Spring colds are a tradition and isn’t it quite common for illness to arrive three seconds after our bodies finally reach relax mode? Rich was struck first but zipped off to a work trip while I rolled into the week feeling the joy of the incoming calm. Soon, my own sneezures arrived but, still, spring cold/allergies/sinus infection/whatever…no big deal. Even better? I already had a doctor’s appointment on the books and was able to grab a zPak just as the goop arrived.
On Wednesday night, our eldest child and I hopped in the car for a quick dinner out. It was supposed to be an easy, relaxing, distracting meal the evening before we placed that child on a plane for a month-long adventure in Greece. Relaxing? Three seconds into the drive I let out a quick cough–the kind of cough that sounded like it wanted to be a much bigger cough but was still struggling to form.
From my child: “Not to be obvious, but…you did test for Covid, right?”
Me: “Um, no? I saw the doctor yesterday. It’s a sinus infection.“
Child: “Do you know that?? Why wouldn’t you test just to be sure?!?! HOLY SHIT.“
Me: “What would you like me to do? Turn the car around and take a test before dinner?”
Child: “YES!!!!!”
It was at this point that I knew we were about to enter full meltdown mode. I glanced to my right to see a vibrating body beneath a face now completely covered by a stretched-up t-shirt.
Like me, this child is known for the stress meltdown and, frankly, I’d been expecting it all day as the hours before their first (solo) international trip ticked away. I did not expect my pseudo-cough to be the catalyst but, fine, I’d take the dang test. Did we even have any tests? Were they still good? Did I even know how to take one?
Nothing says Class of 2024 like a positive Covid test.
While I know that 2024 Covid is much, much different than 2020 Covid, my child was not amused. Meltdown mode, fully engaged. Turns out it did not matter if I knew how to take the test as my witness stood feet away monitoring my every move and, when those two little lines appeared, the scream of desperation was probably heard throughout the neighborhood. I ignored the stomps up the stairs, the slammed bedroom door, and the sounds of who-knows-what being tossed around in frustration.
I dialed up Rich with the news (no surprise, he soon tested positive as well) and assigned him to damage control. He is typically a much better handler of meltdown mode than I am. Still, it didn’t go great. He was the actual recipient of the “Irresponsible Parents!!!” blasting before the line between him and our child went silent.
We do try to remember that Covid will long rate as the biggest thing to happen in each of our children’s lives. We do try to remember that the effects of it will last well into their futures and may always be a triggering word. We hope that as Covid falls further into their pasts and, perhaps, as other crises land in their life baskets, it will become less of a big deal.
On this day, however, there was no sign of appreciating the irony of grabbing a good case of the Covid from its likely source of that Class of 2024 graduation ceremony.
As this post hits the interwebs, we have one child in California and one child in Greece.
I suppose some might think that irresponsible (if the shoe fits…?), but as we reminded both kids, Covid 2024 is different than Covid 2020. Airports are no longer screening for fevers or requiring masks. Four years of vaccinations and immunity-building have removed the need for isolation and constant testing. Is Covid still contagious? Of course. But the outcome is often a handful of yucky days that could easily be mistaken for a spring cold/allergies/sinus infection/whatever…no big deal. Heck, if that little cough-that-wanted-to-be-a-bigger-cough hadn’t slipped out and kicked off that demand for testing, we likely never would have known it was actually Covid.
Though really, based on the last eight weeks of chaos, shouldn’t we have anticipated it?