What Will We Keep From This Time?
I can’t wait to say goodbye to this moment, but some things I’ve seen over the past weeks are worth holding onto for tomorrow
The other night, while making dinner, I asked my wife what she thought would happen with the rest of the school year. Spain, where we live, is still on lockdown. Would our kids, Liam and Luc, have to repeat their grade in the fall? If not, would they be behind academically when they returned?
As I was about to say more, my wife turned to me and said, “Who gives a shit?”
I looked at her, stunned.
But it wasn’t that she didn’t care about our kids’ education. Her point, she explained, was that the lessons they’re learning from this experience will stay with them for the rest of their lives. They’re learning they can’t always do what they want to do. They’re learning how to make the most of what they have. They’re learning how to deal with uncertainty and stress. All of this is more valuable than whatever they would learn in a classroom.
My wife is smart. I decided to stop talking after that. What she said made me realize that beyond our children, all of us will be changed by this pandemic. We’ll be different after this. And while I fully acknowledge that not everyone has loads of…
