Counting COVID-19 blessings

Teaching while trapped in quarantine is not easy and definitely not fun.

Sitting in my dining room, beaming into the classroom via Google Meet to my students (who didn’t need to quarantine thanks to my continuous negative test results) while simultaneously teaching a handful of my students who were quarantined in their homes for other reasons, plus assisting in the remote learning of my own children, who were also quarantined with me, all while Elysha was isolated upstairs, recovering from COVID-19, was challenging.

Peering through a computer screen at a classroom of children, attempting to teach, monitor progress, engage interest. and even hear their voices through masks and microphones not designed to capture sound across a room, was nearly impossible. Thankfully, I had a fantastic teaching assistant in the classroom, co-teaching alongside me, but almost every day still ended in frustration.

The work day also ended with the kids and me piling into the car for our daily trip to the COVID-19 testing facility in Hartford for yet another test. The testing site is the Xfinity Center, a concert venue where I have previously seen performances by Bon Jovi, Green Day, Blink 182, and more. The will call booth, where I once retrieved concert tickets, is now the place where testing kits are slid through the tiny slot between the glass and counter so you can swab your nose and pass them back.

Monitoring my children as they swabbed their noses in order to detect the presence of a potentially deadly virus in the same spot where I once picked up tickets for the Goo Goo Dolls was surreal.

We tested so often that the employees behind the glass knew all of our names and even wished Clara a happy birthday.

Add to all of this my children’s incessant need to be fed every 4-6 hours, plus their unending need for clean dishes, clean clothing, and bedtime stories, and it was a busy two weeks to say the least.

Clara also celebrated her birthday while in quarantine and while Elysha was isolated from the family, which didn’t make for the happiest birthday celebration.

But being oppressively, relentlessly positive, I tried like hell to find the silver linings in this less-than-ideal experience wherever possible.

Like on Wednesday, when my kids and I spent our lunch break outside, building a snowman on the front lawn. While assisting them with their remote learning is not always pleasant, the ability to play with my kids during our downtime was treasured.

I also spent a lot of time with my cats, who are not quite as intelligent as my students but are definitely more fun to watch. Sitting on my bed last week, teaching addition and subtraction of fractions over a video screen, was not ideal.

Having my cats lounging beside me, looking adorable, helped. It helped a lot.

I also continually counted my blessings:

• Elysha’s symptoms were mild, and she recovered quickly.
• I was still able to work despite my quarantined status.
• Friends brought us food. My students and their parents dropped off meals and activities to occupy my kids. One of our friends baked Clara a birthday cake. Many people, cognizant of Clara’s quarantined birthday status, dropped off small gifts and surprises, making it a far more celebratory day than originally expected.
• My colleagues supported me at school by sending me lessons, photocopying assignments, checking in on my class, sending me photos, and checking in constantly. One of my friends who is teaching remotely this year sent me incredibly useful resources that made teaching far less challenging.
• The couch, where I slept every night, was only mildly uncomfortable.

Thanks to technology, Elysha and I also spent a lot of time on Zoom and FaceTime, talking face to face. I missed my wife dearly, but I was able to see and speak to her all the time.

In the evenings, I read chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to the kids with Elysha sitting between them, on a laptop screen, joining us via Zoom.

It was not the best way to spend two weeks of my life, and for the first week, I lived in constant fear that Elysha’s illness might become worse. The stone that sat atop my heart, day after day, hour by hour, was the worst. Not knowing the potential severity of her illness kept me on edge at all times.

But we were very lucky, and I remind myself of that all the time.

When I received the call while teaching that Elysha had tested positive for COVID-19 and I needed to leave the building immediately, the possible outcomes that lay before us were many.

So many of them were terrifying.

But Elysha’s illness was mild. Though she is still suffering from fatigue, she was fortunate to avoid the worst that the virus has to offer.

Miraculously, the kids and I never tested positive.

I continued to work. We received enormous support from friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

We built a snowman. Read bedtime stories. Celebrated a birthday. I spent a lot of time with our cats.

A friend of mine recently said that it takes almost no time for me to transform a negative situation into a positive one just by choosing to reframe the experience in a more positive light.

This isn’t always possible, of course. Sometimes life can be downright awful. Some outcomes are not so easily overcome by searching for silver linings, finding new perspectives, and choosing to be positive.

Sometimes life punches you in the face, and all you can do it wait to heal.

But when it’s possible to look back on a difficult time and count your blessings, why not?

Doesn’t the alternative kind of suck?