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US Infected: 26,523,074 Dallas Infected: 399,223 Texas Deaths: 36,887
Since my last post on July 21, 2020, a lot has changed. Some for the better, but mostly it’s worse. Since my last post, the numbers have exploded exponentially and we still don’t have any idea when “normal” will return. At the current moment, approximately 4,000 people are dying in the US from COVID-19 every single day. It is no longer just strangers affected. There are people all around me that I know who are battling COVID. My aunt’s brother passed away, and so did the security guard who worked at the school where my kids went and where I taught. While my aunt’s brother had hemophilia which complicated things, the security guard was actually a body builder full of vitality and it was a severe shock to learn of his passing. Now we have variants of the virus popping up, and although they have started distributing vaccines, the process is slow and the variants popping up from Brazil, UK and South Africa may not be stopped as easilly with these vaccines. Since we are not older, nor frontline workers, they are predicting that we can get the vaccines late spring to early summer. There are still no vaccines for the kids.
In August, the kids went back to school, virtually. We did the first 9 weeks completely online, but as time wore on, the schools in our district decided to open back up and went with a hybrid model. I kept my kids at home. We are still locked down just as tightly as we were at the beginning. It has been tough though. My son is struggling with getting the teachers’ attentions since he’s online and the teachers tend to be more attentive to the students in the classroom, often forgetting the online students. We are now 3/4 of the way through the school year, and I’m sure his learning is suffering because of the situation, but I’m not willing to put our lives in jeopardy by sending him in. Every day we get emails from his school saying that 1 or more students or staff have tested positive.
The holidays were exceptionally depressing this past year. It was hard to not be with our family members for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We put up decorations, but it was hard to want to do much because we knew in our hearts that nobody was going to see them. It did help our spirits a little to have the tree up, but the holidays themselves were quiet and subdued. It was difficult to shop for each other because we were limited to what we could get delivered, so there were no real surprises. We did take the opportunity to go see Christmas lights almost every evening. We’d pick a town, look up the best light displays and drive over to look at them. It was a nice escape from the house!
We are still doing our shopping through Walmart pick up and Costco delivery. My husband goes every other month to get the meat at the halal meat market or we order delivery meat from Midamar. We don’t go anywhere or see anyone. We occasionally order a pizza or Popeye’s chicken that we can pop in the oven to kill any germs.
In November, I found a teaching position with Lone Star Online Academy at Roscoe (a K12 school). I started virtually teaching 5th graders from all over Texas. It is a really great job and I love being with the students again! I love that I have kids from all over the state, from Amarillo to Houston, Tyler to El Paso…big cities and small villages. It’s amazing. It’s keeping me occupied and has helped my socialization a lot. It’s a ton of work, because I have 45 kids in my class, but I’m enjoying the challenge.
Another big change in our house came with the start of 2021. We adopted a little furball. Finnick came to live with us on January 2nd. We rescued the 8 week old kitten from the shelter, and he has done so much to change our lives in the few weeks we’ve had him. Just having a critter around to keep us hopping or to snuggle with has really helped the kids depression at being cooped up for so long.
I must say, the hardest part in all of this is the mental drain of not going anywhere. It’s tough on the kids who want to be out socializing. They see their friends going out and posting things on social media and they want to know why we won’t do the same. Then, it comes in…the news of those friends and their families testing positive. Even my daughter’s best friend…she texted to tell us that her sister had been exposed, so her sister and mother had to go get tested.
In my classroom, I’ve had several kids exposed who had to quarantine for 2 weeks alone in their rooms. I’ve had a handful who have had COVID and had to battle the illness to recover. I’ve even had kids whose parents are on life support. It’s heartbreaking and one wonders how on Earth those kiddos can be focused on fractions and spelling when going through such challenges. Teachers are struggling as well. Exposure in the classrooms is a real challenge that many people don’t want to talk about.
So here we are. 10 months into the pandemic. We’re still here, we’re still survivng. We thank God every single day for our blessings of health and pray that we, and those we love will be spared from the illness. Here’s to a brighter tomorrow, and may we all receive some respite from this madness!
