“Momma, when the sickness ends can we……..” go to the zoo, go to Target, get ice cream, go to the park, go to the pottery shop, go to the grocery store, have a picnic with my cousins, and the list goes on and on.
My little three-year-old looks at this pandemic and the subsequent quarantine in a much different way from my husband and I. On March 12th, she was excited to be a lion in her preschool circus. Little did she know that that would be the last day that she would be with her teachers and classmates in a “brick and mortar” classroom setting. It was the following day that I would enter my classroom full of students for the last time this school year, the last time that I would go grocery shopping without a mask and anxiety, the last day that my daughter would see her cousins before the quarantine began. It was also around that time that we had to explain why she couldn’t go to gymnastics, or school, or the park, or wander around Target with the anticipation of getting a cake pop from Starbucks. Her life changed and she took it like a champ. Instead, she started a daily routine of asking “Momma, when the sickness ends can we…..”.
At first her requests made me sad because quite frankly I’m not sure when she can go to the zoo again or see her friends for a playdate. I am not sure when life will “get back to normal” and when it does, what that will even look like.
About a month into the quarantine, I was getting mad at the whole situation. Since when are simple requests like visiting her grandmother, going for a walk, or getting ice cream to much? However, I was a historian before I was a mother and I look at current events through the lens of both the past and the future. On one hand, I remember the case study of the Spanish Influenza of 1917-1918 and the mistakes that were made (mistakes that we are remaking, but that’s a different conversation). On the other hand, I look at how the future will remember us and the fight that we have against the novel Corona Virus (how will we be judged in history).
It is in the middle of these thoughts and emotions that my preschooler grounds me in reality. She does not express sadness, anger, and anxiety….just hope in the form of “when the sickness ends…”. It is like she is wise beyond her years in expressing that this is temporary and the situation that we are in will eventually end. When it does end, she will be ready with a list of all the things that she wants to do to celebrate living and all that life has to offer.
One of the things on her list is to visit a local pottery studio to paint ceramics with her grandmother and me. The pottery studio is amazing and has Disney Princess parties and toddler story/craft time. Yesterday, my daughter asked if she could make a card for the owner of the pottery studio to let her know that she misses her and can’t wait to come have fun again.
*Silence* that is what I did for a few seconds as I realized the HOPE in her statement. She recognized that reaching out and expressing that she misses her favorite places and the people in those places was a way for her to help during the “sickness”. I am in awe of her beautiful preschool heart and I said a silent wish that she would always remain so hopeful and empathetic.
Wonderful read. I know a three year old who misses his friends at school and it is so sad.