Four Years Ago


 It was four years ago...not the exact date (actually in looking it up, it was March 8th), but it was a Sunday and it was a warm Sunday, like today.  Surprisingly early in March to be so warm, but there you have it.

I remember this because it was the day after the final performance of my son's first high school musical.  (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which I saw all 4 performances of and each was different and each was amazing.)  Yesterday, I saw the high school spring musical, without my son (who is now in college).  Many of the performers are friends of my son's.  "Kids" that I have known for 4 years or longer. It was strange to be there without him...either in the show or in the audience. 

 Before he was in high school I used to take my son to see the musicals...it started out because I wanted to see a particular show that was being directed by my former English teacher and I couldn't get a babysitter.  So we brought my son along and it became a tradition, even after the incredible English teacher retired and passed her baton onto the current teacher.  She came back to see the show that Saturday afternoon.  It was a beautiful "warmish" day (unlike yesterday which was warmish, but pouring down rain).  I remembered we wondered if we could hug because there was this "thing" that was going around.  We hugged.  I'm glad.

The next day, Sunday, was warm and beautiful.  Very much like today is shaping up to be.  I got my very last haircut and color by my friend, JG.  He wore a mask while he did his work.  It was odd, but...he stopped doing hair shortly thereafter, which was understandable due to what came next.  He never started up again and that makes me sad.  How on that sunny Sunday morning we laughed and that was it.  (JG is still very much alive and active, but we haven't seen each other face to face since that day.)

I made an Irish soda bread that day.  I put up a corned beef for dinner.  I knew my son would like both and since he'd been in the musical, he hadn't been home for dinner in over a week.  He went to see the girl he had been "seeing" that afternoon.  (Someone we never met...which tells you how well this went.)  I went for a walk in the afternoon sun.  All seemed pretty well.

How things quickly turned.  My son didn't come home for dinner that night.  Which rightfully annoyed (angered) me.  Turned out he shouldn't have been at his "girlfriend's" house as her parents weren't home.  And that turned into a whole massive mess, which was probably exacerbated by the pandemic that followed.

Within the week, the world changed.  School would close for two days and come back as remote.  I would work from home and my office would close, permanently, only to come back years later in the city of Newark.  Everything changed.  

On this sunny Sunday, I think back to that one.  How that day, for me, really marked the end of what was and ushered in what was to be.  What was to be was scary and horrifying.  And we should not forget that...for while we are no longer in a pandemic (due to the incredible work of so many in the scientific and medical fields), Covid-19 still goes on.  

I think I'll take a walk this afternoon.  Remembering what once was and looking forward to wat might be.


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