You Can't Start to Relax

My world.

Our governor moved up plans to re-open our state to start the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend. The news was met with joy by some needing a big change and economy boost, dread by others who still fear for their safety, and a whole lot of uncertainty overall. For me, on the positive side, I know the governor is making evidence-based decisions, and if he changed the start date of his phase 1 plan (limited businesses opening with safety measures in place) from May 15 to May 9, I'm assuming that means our state is having downward trends, fewer cases, and is more equipped to handle the cases we do have. All good things. On the negative side, however, opening up the state doesn't mean the virus is gone, it just means there's more room at the hospital now.

The week of this announcement things were starting to look up. I dared to leave the house for the first time in 50 days in order to do a careful and secluded Mother's Day breakfast on a cafe porch. It felt so good to be out! I wore matching outfits with my son and soaked up as much positivity as I could during these times in order to have the best first Mother's Day ever.

And I did. There were special gifts, and foods, and visits. We even scheduled a social distancing photo shoot on Mother's Day morning to take commemorative portraits right outside our front door! I couldn't have asked for a better weekend even if we weren't quarantined. I thought the most I had to worry about was hoping people stayed vigilant during reopening, adjusting to new back-to-work schedules coming up for my husband and me, and planning a virtual first birthday for my son.

And then someone very close to us was admitted to the hospital.

The virus was making her sick for days but on the Tuesday after Mother's Day she was admitted. On Friday (yesterday) she was intubated. She's receiving plasma transfusions with Covid-19 antibodies and a new drug that we hope will help her turn the corner as her body fights and the family prays and waits for updates.

Our community, our state, our country can't relax just because cases might be going down. The virus is still here and it's still awful.

Our family can't relax until we know all of us have made it out of these times safe, healed, and home again.