It's Hard Some Days

These are challenging times, no doubt. Our family is extremely blessed that both of us are still actively employed and able to work from home with rare exceptions. We are also fortunate to have childcare for nearly 40 hours a week, which makes working from home possible.

But it's hard to entertain our children in only our house, avoiding outside when the neighbors are outside because Teddy's idea of social distancing is smashing two people into the same tunnel while giggling.

It's hard for AJ to only have his brother, us and babysitter for playmates. It's harder yet because Teddy is not an ideal playmate who talks, listens well and plays as a typical child. That makes my heart ache for AJ, who'd love to play with his best friends Natalie and Brynn.

It's harder yet because I know that when things open up, that our family will still need to be exceedingly cautious. We have Teddy who licks everything and is extremely high risk for seizures with any fever, much less a prolonged one. We've watched him intubated once and never hope to see that again. One of my greatest fears is that if Teddy becomes ill, will he be alone in the hospital? I'm certain at most one of us will be allowed to be with him, and that's so terrifying. 

It's hard because Dave has done all the grocery shopping since March, and he hates grocery shopping. He does it because unfortunately I take immunosuppresents for my Crohn's disease, so we need to be cautious for me as well. The two things I have going in my favor are that I will wear a mask and that I don't lick everything. 

It's hard because we want to spend time outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather, but we have to turn around at trails that are too busy. We're not willing to take that risk.

It's hard because I'm working more hours than I've ever worked before in my life, having my phone ring with calls in the middle of the night and ding with texts at all hours. The works I'm doing isn't my normal role, as is true for so many, and it's the challenge of working together to lead our organization through this crisis. 

It's hard when one of our boy's running buddies loses her husband to the disease. We pray daily for her, and our hearts break for her and the suffering she's enduring so alone right now.

It's just hard. It is. Somedays. Sometimes every day. But it could be so much worse. 

And it's not hard every minute of every day. There are bright days and bright moments. There's reasons to smile every day, and all this crap makes us appreciate the little things and the good things so much more.

Running with Teddy on a new trail was our reason to smile today.