40 days and 40 nights. It's been a long time, and getting longer.Today, I was ready to write about the thunderstorm that took place this morning, when the house shuddered with every clap and the girls ran into the greenhouse off the sunroom so that they could look up and see the water pouring down the plastic roof. They squealed as the water drip dropped in from one section (it's not a permanent structure), and they tiptoed around the puddle.
I was prepping to say how wonderful it was this afternoon, when we got the whole Brownie troop onto Zoom, and had a big meeting where the girls were able to write and draw about their experiences being home with their families. Most importantly, they got to just talk to their friends, and see their faces. They miss each other, and it's hard for a nine-year-old to grasp this stuff (even a super-smart one like my daughter.
It was also a day where I practiced facepainting on the girls, at their request. They love a show called Miraculous Ladybug, where the main characters "transform" into superheroes based on their "miraculouses" (basically, a little tchotchke). They wanted to be transformed by their miraculouses, so we pulled out the facepaint I had bought for R.'s birthday two years ago, and I went to work making them into BeanieBoo-inspired penguin and reindeer superheroes.
But it's also a day where I had to break the news to my daughters that our tenants (who live in the apartment above our garage) lost their dog Jiggy today. The girls had been excited to move home when we did so last summer because we got to come home. But the added bonus was Jiggy, a 14 years young Jack Russel Terrier who loved to play fetch with E. in the yard and run around with R. We told them at dinner, and E's reindeer makeup ran a lot. They lost their dogs two years ago, within three weeks of each other as both succumbed to old age, so they understand to a degree, but it doesn't make it easier.
And then after dinner came the big blow- a mom friend of mine from my daughters' old school succumbed to cancer the other night, and her husband posted the news on Facebook. Her children were in R. and E's classes, and she was one of the first people I met when we had moved in with my mom almost three years ago. We had her and her family over to swim, and frequently ran into them on the playground and at soccer practices, since E. and her son play for the same club. Our daughters played on the same softball team, and I occasionally drove them to or from, depending on how she was feeling (they lived around the corner).
I knew she had been undergoing treatment for a long time, but you always hope for a miracle, and it is a legitimate tragedy that this beautiful soul had to leave her family way too soon. She was a fighter to the end, and her kids were always her first priority. As I read the note, I looked at Jeff, and squeaked out for him to take the girls into the other room, while I ran to the bathroom and bawled. When I had calmed down sufficiently, I told him what had happened, and we mutually agreed to hold off on telling the kids until morning. It's going to be hard, because I don't have any words for this kind of a tragedy. I don't know how to make sense of it myself, and the thought of her husband and children having to deal with this new reality at any time, let alone in isolation, is gut wrenching.
When you hear truly awful news, it puts everything else in perspective. I've heard people complaining about losing jobs and money, missing hanging out and all the other things that normally are priorities in life, but let's face it. At the end of the day, as long as we are alive and able to be with our loved ones, we will find a way through. Losing someone shines a very bright light on how grateful I am for the "simple" things I have, my husband next to me, my kids sleeping in their rooms. I will grieve as best I can in these weird times, attending a virtual service for this incredible woman. And that fight that she displayed- the staunch resilience and love- that will live in on her kids, her husband, and all those who knew her. We're all better for having had her in our lives.
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