Baby Waider + Little Brother Too: Today was Hard

Dear Baby Waider + Little Brother Too,

I have a million things to do, but my mind is all over the place. When my mind is unsettled sometimes I turn to writing as an outlet to calm stop the endless spinning of what-if? and how-come? and when will? Undoubtedly March of 2020 will be one for the history books. What started as a looming threat has become a reality right here in our own country. We had been hearing about the Corona Virus or Covid 19 since December or January. It started in China and as was predicted made it here. We've never experienced something quite like this. The news has been warning for months about being ready for this epidemic, then it became a pandemic. The warnings have been terrifying, dangerous to older people, not enough ventilators. Thousands have died in China and Italy. I assumed that the U.S. was planning for this tidal wave headed our way so I carried on with my life.

Thursday evening it was reported that groups of 50 or more were no longer supposed to be congregating so they canceled our spring program. That seemed bad...Then Friday at 10 AM we got the call that we were canceling school for the following week. We feverishly gathered copies and resources to send home with students. We said good bye to our students with an eerie feeling. We were told it would be a week which seemed doable. This was not goodbye, it was see ya soon. I wasn't sure how to address with students that we were leaving school for the whole week. I gave good normal goodbye and didn't really get the opportunity to give the sendoff I would hope for when sending my students on their way for an extended period of time. We hugged and high-fived. It felt strange to me that I would not see them for the three days before we were supposed to have spring break, but I felt like I would see them again on March 23rd and it would be okay.

Enter this week and everything came crashing down. It was the realization that we don't really know what the future holds. The governor closed school through the 30th of March, but the Corona Virus is only growing, which makes me scared. I'm scared because this is a scary sickness. It makes me worry for all of the older people we love in our lives. I am terrified because of the lack of hospital beds and resources in our area to support people if they are sick. The threats really go on and on. We've been social distancing since last Friday. Even in Rapid City our stores our out of toilet paper, meat, rice, and other essentials. History may tell the tale that the media scared people. Maybe that's the case, but the reports cannot be made up. There are people dying from this and it is severe enough to close the doors of public schools.

I was functioning quite well. I was carrying on, homeschooling the two of you, and adjusting to my new life as a stay at home mom. We decided to take the dog on a LONG walk because she's just more manageable that way. When we were just about home Baby Waider hit something with her scooter and fell. The fall resulted in the most blood curdling cry and scream I've ever heard leave her mouth. My initial thought was, "OMG, she broke her arm." I grabbed the scooter and carried it along with a bag of fresh dog poop and the leash. Baby Waider gingerly grabbed her arm and whimpered the rest of the way home. I called the doctor right when we got home and we were told we had to report to the doctor's office for an x-ray based upon my call. First violation of social distancing rule-stay away from the doctor's office. We had special rules to follow. We had to stay in the car until the nurse called us and then we had to go back to the doctor's office. We immediately had an x-ray. The man who did the x-ray was the same one who had done a chest x-ray on Baby Waider 8 years previously. It was quickly determined that Baby Waider, had in fact, broken her arm.So, day 2 of homeschool and Baby Waider fired me as the PE teacher.

That night I had a really hard time sleeping. I kept stressing about how much worse the broken arm could have been, and what if we would have had to go to the hospital. Anyway, my thoughts ran wild and I didn't sleep much at all. When I woke up the next morning the custodian and one of my favorite people, Cathy Nissen, shot me a text wondering if I were getting my plants since we'd be out for the following week and they would be deep cleaning my classroom. It was that moment that it hit me. This is major. This is closing schools for two weeks (or more?)You do not know when you will see your students again. I was flooded with emotion. I went to school to grab my teacher's manuals and my plants.

I walked into my beloved school on a Wednesday afternoon and it was silent and vacant. Just a few days prior it was bustling with activity and sounds of kids echoing through the halls. As I went to my classroom my heart slowly broke. School is my jam. It is the place I want to be more than any other. I've been either a student or a teacher for the past 36 years straight. I love everything about school. The kids, the smell, the worksheets, the supplies, the lesson plans, my friends, and the atmosphere. Given the choice to be anywhere in the world I would probably choose an elementary school by the name of Piedmont Valley Elementary. My classroom was eerily tidy. We had to clear walls and counters before our departure to the point that I actually am not sure where most of my stuff is. I snapped a few pictures and started crying.

I am by nature a cryer. I take after Grandma Halter who is also a cryer. I tend to get emotional and have been spending much of this crisis crying about various things. My crying seems more warranted than it has for other reasons by comparison, but after being in my empty classroom I was inconsolable. The way I see it is that so much of who I am is because I am a teacher. I have been a teacher longer than I've known your dad or had either of you. As one friend put it I have been teaching since I was Little Brother's age. Taking my students away from me is about the most devastating thing that you could do.I've spent a couple of weeks away from students before. During Christmas Break for example, but a break this long in March is unsurpassed.

As I try to process what this means for the past couple of days I've drawn strength and perspective from my favorite book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. The first being the idea that we are just at the beginning of this. In this book, Edward is thrown overboard. Right now it feels as though we have sunk to the bottom of the ocean. It feels as though there is nothing shy of a miracle that can spare us from this mess. At the same time I feel like the part where he is with Lucious Clark in the doll shop when Lucious says, "All in good time. In the doll business, we have a saying: there is real time and there is doll time. You, my friend, have entered doll time." We are in doll time. We are in unchartered waters. So much is unknown. You will both look back on this time. Baby Waider will inevitably remember that she broke her arm and was taken away from her friends and teacher abruptly and unfairly. Little Brother will remember it as a time when he unfairly delivered truth bombs, such as,"You're the worst sister ever! You broke your arm on purpose! I bet you never taught anyone anything!" Mom and dad will remember it as a time where we adjusted to life as parent-teachers where we juggled three jobs between two people, two kids, and a freshly spayed dog. Undoubtably we'll remember this as a time we pulled together as a tighter unit and held the two of you as close as we possibly could.

Below: A photo essay of the early days of social distancing.