Dealing with Change (a COVID-19 Post)

Currently the entire world is dealing with a virus - a killer virus that we are still learning about and that has everything in our personal lives turned upside down. Businesses are closed (when possible, employees are working from home but there is a huge amount of people applying for unemployment - including me) and meetings are happening via technology, supplies such as toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, eggs etc. are limited. In our state, people are told to stay home unless there is an essential reason to go out. If you do go out, keep it limited to as few people as possible (one person to grocery shop, no groups over 10 people) and wear a mask.  Grocery stores are limiting the numbers of people who can be in at one time, have arrows to show shoppers which way to go in the aisles, have employees wearing gloves and sanitizing the belt after each order, and have put up plexiglass guards at the registers. Schools are closed and parents are helping their children navigate online learning. "Social distancing" is a new term - people need to keep a minimum of 6 ft. apart.


And that is only a few of the changes we are seeing - worldwide - not just local. Literally, this is our world right now.


RJC has been struggling but we are slowly adjusting. This is a Facebook post I shared today, as we are now in our second month of this new lifestyle:

It’s been an interesting and complicated morning with RJC. As she is extremely calendar oriented she likes to review all her planned future activities in the morning. This includes favorite trips such as the Aquarium, the Zoo, specific restaurants, visits to grandma and grandpa’s house, Special Olympics, her sister’s upcoming birthday, etc. Many of these have been on her calendar for months and those dates are approaching.
This morning I finally had to tell her that everything was closed. I started with showing her the Aquarium website which had the words “temporarily closed” in a paragraph. Then I reviewed the places she already knows are closed: school (it’s what she calls her Day Program), shopping, restaurants, movies, synagogue etc.

She just kept staring at me and I could see it was registering. I told her we could go in the summer (hoping that will be the case) and she should pick a new date. Slowly she started looking at the calendar and then began to change the dates to July and August. She kept looking at me after each change, with the saddest and most confused eyes ever.
It was both heartbreaking and a relief. Heartbreaking because she does not know what is going on. The confusion and sadness on her face was painful to me. A relief because she managed to handle it without hurting herself or me, or destroying property. Yes, there was yelling. But honestly, I want to yell too.
I’m also imagining that even this summer when hopefully things do reopen, the experience will be different. It is possible that some of the places she wants to go sadly may not reopen at all. I cannot imagine there will be large crowds allowed which will mean longer lines. There may be a requirement to wear masks. Perhaps there will be limited hours at first. All of these new circumstances will require relearning and adjustments for RJC. I don’t see an end to her anxiety and confusion and it just makes me so sad for her and other families in the same situation.
She is currently obsessing over the new
dates and I imagine this will be the major
topic of “conversation” - such as it is in our
house - for the few weeks. We will endlessly be reviewing the calendar and I will be trying to reassure her. The kicker is, I don’t actually know what will be and there is certainly the chance we will be needing to revise the calendar again.
So I try to remember this:
(Kohelet/Ecclesiastes)
Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the heaven. אלַכֹּ֖ל זְמָ֑ן וְעֵ֥ת לְכָל־חֵ֖פֶץ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּׁמָֽיִם