Seventeen

Dear Katie,

It started happening in 2017.

In all the prior years - from 2003 to 2016 - I kept your pace. At least once a year, I got a gold star for mothering when I wrote your annual birthday letter. I could give myself a pat on the back for taking the time to pause and remember all that had passed in the previous year.

Then in 2017, I started slipping. The birthday letter I wrote that year was posted a month and a half late. The following year, I fully missed the mark but decided to cover it by writing a 15.5 birthday letter. In 2019, I didn't make the birthday deadline. No one could tell because the magic of blogging means you can choose your own date and time on a post.

In 2020, I didn't even try. Blame it on the Coronavirus pandemic or on my apathy - which could possibly be called by another name: awakening.

Because in 2020, everything changed. The qualifications for that mystical Best Mother Award went from performance to presence, from doing to being. And as your 17th birthday approached and we were three months into the pandemic, I came to the realization that we were seeing too many Lasts for my heart to keep up:

Your last marching band competition.

Your last day of junior year.

Your last gathering with friends.

Your last public Wind Ensemble performance.

Your last in-person audition.

So many lasts to even keep track! I didn't know then what I know now: those lasts weren't THE last, but they were the Lasts for the 16-year-old Katie of 2020. And for the heart of a mama whose baby is already aging at break-neck speed, I didn't have the energy to face the birthday letter milestone.

And then there was the awakening I mentioned, the realization that earning the yearly gold star goes way beyond a simple letter. In early 2020 as you approached your 17th birthday, I earned the gold star in other ways:

We started a daily walking routine and refused to break our streak for quite a while.

We watched movies I had always hoped to watch with you: City Slickers; Airplane; The Help; The Matrix; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Sleepless in Seattle; Big; Ghost; and Tommy Boy.

We took time to do crafts together.

We talked about loneliness, growing up, and your future.

My "mothering absolutes" went by the wayside as I had to relax certain rules such as no electronics in your bedroom. (How were you going to do online Zoom classes in the living room while your brother did his there too?)

Even in the isolation of quarantine, you kept aging and transforming and becoming. You learned to be resilient, to celebrate smaller things, and to hold loosely to plans that got cancelled repeatedly.

I'm sure your 17th birthday wasn't quite what you had in mind, but you rolled with that too. We got Chick-fil-A for breakfast, ate it at our friends' beautiful backyard waterfall, then spent the day at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Now, it's nine months later and I'm finally looking back at your 17th birthday. Just in time to start writing your 18th birthday letter, right? (Ugh!)

I was so proud of the young lady you were becoming last June, and so proud of the one you still are. You've endured a year of so many joys and sorrows! But I don't want to scoop your 18th birthday letter just yet. I'll fill you in on all of that soon. And hopefully I'll write that letter closer to your 18th birthday than your 19th. Right?!

I love you,

Mom

Mid-March of 2020

One year ago today, it was Friday the 13th. It was also the first day of spring break for my kids, and the news was buzzing about some virus that might kill us.

From 10am to 2pm I was at the local boutique where I work, then I stopped at Walmart on the way home. Here's what I wrote in my journal about that experience, and a photo I snapped because I thought the world had gone bonkers:

"It was incredibly crazy. With the Coronavirus COVID-19 looking like it's going to shut down some stuff, there were tons of people and so many shelves were picked over. I wasn't stressed about all of this until I went to Walmart!"

The canned soup shelves at Walmart on 3/13/2020.

It is worth noting that when I went into my archives just now to find that photo, my emotions ratcheted up as I glanced over some of the screenshots and photos I saved from those first few days. Hindsight is 20/20, and I wish I knew then what I know now. (Or do I?)

So let's go on a little tangent: one year ago this week, all the chatter was about staying home, flattening the curve by this new term called "social distancing..."

3/16/2020

...washing your hands for at least 20 seconds...

This was posted by the sink in a public restroom on 3/12/2020.

People I know in real life and on my social media feed seemed to fit into one of two camps: they were either alarmists or underemotional. (Personally, I vacillated between the two.)

3/16/2020

3/13/2020

And some people weren't sure of much but were definitely sure of God.

3/16/2020

Within days, many started making political statements. This was a screenshot I took on March 16th:

Over that first spring break weekend, we escaped "civilization" and stayed with some friends at their cabin about an hour away from home. I remember loading the car with this thought in the back of my mind: what if we aren't home when the world shuts down? I half expected the zombie apocalypse to start over the weekend, and we'd never be able to get back to our house - or at least not for a long while. We were taking our dog with us, so I thought at least we wouldn't have to come back any sooner than necessary. At the last minute, I threw in a few extra outfits for me and the kids in case we spent more than a weekend away from home. Plus more snacks because: priorities!

We had a good weekend with our friends and being isolated in the woods helped calm some of the worry. On Sunday, we watched church online because our church had announced they were closing the buildings for two weeks until things settled down.

The zombie apocalypse didn't occur over the weekend, so we headed home that afternoon. I kind of wanted to stay at the cabin to wait out spring break, thinking the world just needed a week to get back on track.

When we got home, Jackson asked to hang out at the neighbors' house. From my journal:

"I let him. Got a text from XX saying St. Charles County is closing all schools until April 6. All of a sudden I felt a little panic coming on. I went to the neighbors to bring J home."

The next day, we got the notification from our school district.

That's the day, March 16, when I started tracking COVID Isolation days in my journal. I also sat the kids down and, as I wrote in my journal, "talked about our plans to still have a routine while we're being isolated." Dan came home from work that day and told me the plans his office was making, and I remember feeling angry and anxious because I felt it wasn't enough for his immunocompromised wife.

I had to vent to my sister and felt I couldn't find a private place inside the house, so I sat in my car in the garage to call her. She had venting of her own to do because she was supposed to fly to Qatar that day to be with her husband, who lives there for his job. She was literally on the way to the airport when the airline notified her of cancelled flights because the country had closed its borders. She returned to her condo and our phone call was filled with lots of What Ifs and When Will I...

That's the day it all changed, when life split into a firm BEFORE and AFTER.

Each day of mid-March this year, I have found myself thinking about what I was doing only one year ago.

The last time we ate out.

The last time we gathered in a crowd.

The last time we went to a store without any precautions.

And the first time I ever wore a mask.

Will we ever be like we were only 52 weeks ago?