I arrived in Saint Louis the summer after the Great Blizzard of 1982. I don’t recall ever asking anyone about their once-in-a-lifetime, snow-storm experience. I didn’t need to ask. Unbidden, stories would spill out over shared cups of coffee or beer. In the seminary, where I hung out for a large part of the 1980’s, loquacious “survivors,” told the tale of frozen water pipes, water damage, and an all-hands-on-deck effort to rescue and restore. Years later, in the hospital where I worked, the stories highlighted sleep deprived doctors and nurses who could not get home. Together, they rolled up their sleeves, and became temporary kitchen help to prepare food for patients and staff alike. To this day, when a big snow storm looms, Saint Louisans of a certain age, are likely to tell you of their own snow-bound, “before-their-was-an-Internet” saga from decades ago. Generally, the narratives tend to wind around themes of pitching in, cozy family cocooning, and a general sense of communal coming together.
Have you spent any time over the last nine months imagining the stories that you will one day be telling about the Great Pandemic of 2020? In listening and telling those future stories, it is likely that you will find great variation in the themes that will emerge. Depending upon your circumstances, the chapters of your chronicles could range across a huge spectrum. On the warm, Hallmark Movie end of the continuum, stories might include COVID puppies, Taco Tuesdays, and sourdough bread recipes. On the other end of the story-telling scale, the chapters could be illustrated in darker colors, involving financial disruptions, health challenges, lonely deaths, and grieving in isolation.
It seems to me that our collective story of this moment overlaps the story of the Apollo 13 moon mission, portrayed in Ron Howard’s movie by the same name. You might recall from that movie how an on-board explosion robbed the three astronauts of most of their oxygen and electricity. Their moon walking mission was transformed into one of simply trying to get safely home. Through a tremendous amount of adaptability, including some pretty ingenious duct-tape, and bubble gum-type solutions, the crew and their Houston ground support came up with a plan. They reasoned that, with just enough power to throw themselves into orbit around the dark side of the moon, they could use the gravitational force to slingshot themselves back home. For those of you too young to remember the event or the movie, I won’t spoil it for you, but just let me say, I don’t make it a habit to recommend cinematic tragedies during a pandemic!
With the announcement of at least two reliable vaccines, our world may well have discovered the gravitational sling-shot that we need to finally bring this pandemic journey to an end. Simultaneously, the main character in my pandemic movie (i.e. my health-care-employed wife) lately has been starting her days the same way. She wakes up, swipes open her phone, and says some version of, “The COVID hospital census is up ten more patients! We’re almost at full capacity!” Despite the light glimmering just around the bend, our ship is still clearly located on the dark side of the moon.
For our collective adventure movie to end with that final swing out into the light, it would appear that more gravitational thrust will be required than a vaccine alone can provide. My niece, Lindsay, somehow knew that. A couple of weeks ago, she took the script into her own hands. She decided to write her own story, and cast my entire extended family into it. Several weeks ago, she solicited a favorite song from each of us for a Thanksgiving playlist. Having mixed, and compiled it, she published it on Thanksgiving day. Rather than glumly missing everybody in Boston, California, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Saint Louis, each of us were present to each other as we tried to guess who contributed what song? Tonight, we will get together for the first-ever Zoom Family Thanksgiving Trivia Contest that will feature questions Lindsay gathered from all of the contestants. The subject matter will involve arcane family facts guaranteed to stir up a laugh and many good memories.
Lindsay showed me this week, that to make it out into the light, we need to embrace the notion that we are the protagonists as well as the authors of this part of the story. Hope is not a weather system that either shows up, or fails to show up. Lindsay showed that, hope is a muscle that is grown through exercise. Through some pretty adaptive duct-tape and bubble-gum type solutions like these, perhaps more of us could lend a hand keeping asymptomatic spread from occurring to our friends and family. This week, what is a hopeful exercise that you can intentionally provide for the co-stars of the story that you are creating in this final stretch of the journey?