Quarantine and Joy

Quarantined

A few short years ago, my mother had a break from reality and we ended up having to put her in the Alzheimer’s unit of a nursing home. She lived about two more years while there.

During this time of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought about my mom’s life as she was quarantined from the outside world and what her days may have been like. I have thought about the sweetness of her spirit as her life changed overnight to one she could never have imagined. She seemed to accept the change and make the best of it almost every day. She never seemed angry about the isolation and the lack of all things normal. She never seemed fearful about her future.

Mom had outlived my Daddy and also my step-father who was a loving man, as was my Daddy. She had outlived all her siblings, in-laws and most of her friends. She was no longer in her own home, no longer had her photo albums, her own bedroom, her own kitchen, her sewing or crafts or even her own mailbox. She was assigned to a room that she shared with first one roommate and then another when that roommate had to be moved or had died. She didn’t get to go outside anymore unless her daughters came to the facility and took her to the front porch or the enclosed patio outside the common room in the unit.

Whatever had taken part of her memory didn’t take her memory of family. Her face would light up with pure joy when one or more of her daughters would walk in to visit her. Her smile was genuine and beautiful to see. This was not followed by complaints about her situation but by introductions to “friends” that she may have introduced the previous day but had forgotten that she had made. She knew us and knew our names most of the time. All around her were others, with a fair dose of confusion and some that were also physically compromised. All these and all the nurses were her friends.

She never went back to her former home. She died and passed to her new home in heaven from that unit. On the cold, icy day that she died, many roads were either closed or were hazardous. Her daughters weren’t with her when she made the move to her new home. The nurses told us that she and another resident were looking out the patio window, holding hands, and watching some staff make a snowman for their amusement. She was laughing and then just stopped breathing. She left with joy in her heart, it seems to me.

Move to current time: A pandemic struck with the world with a new version of the coronavirus. This COVID-19 pandemic was the impetus to shut down our country and send us all home to quarantine because there is no cure and no immunization. Some have stayed at home with other family members. Some, like me, have stayed at home with no others in my house.

There have been moments during this quarantine when I felt the aloneness, moments when I felt sorry for myself because I wanted some of my normal life back. Some days, fear of the virus, of what the future would hold, fear of the losses that could come from loss of my job, and just plain confusion over the changing news reports made me less than joyful. I am human. I am sinful and subject to seeing the negatives instead of the blessings. I am a Christian but not one that stands out as an example of how to live, how to be the best representative of Jesus as I can be.

My mom’s sweet spirit was a part of who she was. As I battled my conflicting emotions, I began to think about my Mom and her spirit. Her spirit was who she was and her love was a part of her whole. There was never affectation and her acceptance was without anger. She lived her life adjusting to the circumstances that presented in her life, finding ways to thrive and enjoy each of those seasons. She did the best she could, was the best she could be in every one even during some pretty hard times.

Her life has helped me to evaluate and review all the reasons I have to find joy in everything. I don’t mean I am exuberant during trials like this pandemic and quarantine, but I am reflecting on and grateful for the many blessings in my daily life and in my life as a whole. I have learned that one of the greatest of these is that I was never really alone, during this time, as well as many others in my life. My mother is still teaching me.

I have faith, that even when I don’t understand what is happening and have no clue about how things will turn out, I am never alone. I believe God has given His only Son to pay for my long list of sins and this believing acceptance of Jesus Christ and His payment for my sins has entered my name on the list to receive eternal life. This should be enough but that is not all. While we are here, we are supposed to tell the story, carry the message. I have a long list of instances when divine interference has provided me with not only my basic needs but with a large horn of plenty. For my name being placed on the list to live and for the cornucopia of abundant gifts, I am in thanksgiving even while I long to spend an afternoon with another person.

These verses give affirmation that God is with me every day, even on days that I am not displaying the same sweet spirit of my Mother, and are a constant comfort when challenging times throw out some curve balls.

Hebrews: 13: 5 “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

Hebrews: 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”