Tag: pandemic

SoCS: Compassion

There is so much in the world right now for which I feel compassion. I’m sure many others are also joining in this sense of compassion, too.

Media is filled with the heart-breaking situation in Ukraine. So much destruction. So much death and injury and hunger and lack of shelter. The incomprehensible targeting of civilians in their homes, of food warehouses, of people who are trying to flee besieged cities. The deaths of so many soldiers on both sides, compounded by the fact that Russia is not bringing the bodies of its dead back home to their families. The millions of internally displaced people and the millions who have become refugees in other countries.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to cause suffering. The omicron subvariant is sending cases higher in many countries, just as most had relaxed their preventative strategies. Now into the third year of the pandemic, the accumulated losses are staggering. Millions dead, their absence felt by their families, friends, and communities. Many millions more dealing with lasting damage, some with long COVID, others with lung, heart, vascular, and/or neurological damage that they don’t discover until after recovery from the initial infection.

There are other armed conflicts, droughts leading to hunger, other disasters that cause suffering, and always the unfolding disaster of climate change.

All call for my compassion.

There are personal things, too. The neighbor who just lost his mother. Friends and relatives in medical battles. On and on.

I try not to be overwhelmed or succumb to compassion fatigue. I offer help as I can and support efforts for peace and justice. I don’t know if the people for whom I have compassion can feel that support or not. Perhaps, with so many sharing in compassion, they can and feel a little less alone in their suffering.

I hope.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to write about a word that contains “comp.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/03/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-19-2022/

SoCS: travel

Now that it’s (maybe) safer to travel, there are a few trips that I and/or family members may take this spring.

T is going to a high school friend’s wedding in Florida in April. Arrangements are all in place so this is the surest bet to happen.

The three of us have been wanting to get back to the western MA/southern Vermont area where B and I grew up and where we still have friends and relatives. Maybe we will actually make it when the weather is better and we work through a few health things that have been annoying us lately. At the moment, it’s snowing like crazy, a reminder that spring is not here yet.

B and I also are hoping for a getaway this spring. It’s been a while since the two of us could do this, first due to caring for our elders and then still having the pandemic hanging around. Granted, the pandemic is still with us, much as we all wish it were over, but the rates of infection are finally getting down to where leisure travel is possible. My sisters gave me a lovely gift certificate to a posh Finger Lakes inn that I want to use this spring, especially because our 40th anniversary is approaching.

Speaking of 40th, my reunion at Smith College is in May. We finally got word on March 1st that it will be in person. (The last couple of years had been virtual due to the pandemic.) We haven’t started the registration project yet but I’m definitely planning to attend and stay on campus, as is traditional. Our reunion will be the same weekend as commencement; it’s always great and energizing to be on campus with the students and a fuller celebration of the traditions, such as Ivy Day and Illumination Night.

I also have my fingers crossed for another trip to London to visit daughter E and family. We are hoping for June but it’s so hard to say right now if it will be possible. Will there be another variant racing around the globe? Will there be war ongoing? It’s so painful to think of the current suffering, much less project its horrifying dimensions into the future.

Which trips will take place and which will (yet again) be deferred? I don’t know, but it’s likely that you will find out here at Top of JC’s Mind.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is trip. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/03/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-12-2022/

fits and starts

Ugh! There is so much stuff I want/need to do and not nearly enough brainpower to do it.

Admittedly, part of the problem is that I necessarily deferred a lot of things when I was involved with multi-generational caregiving for years and now there is a huge backlog that needs attention. Some are practical things, like dealing with the rest of the belongings of Grandma, Nana, and Paco that are still stored at our house and finishing the remaining work with Paco’s estate, including the final tax filings and, oh, our tax returns, too. Some are creative things, like writing blog posts and poetry, and the administrative tasks that go along with them, like getting submissions in, which I find both tedious and nerve-wracking. Some are educational, trying to stay informed about what is happening in the world and using that knowledge to advocate for social and environmental justice. And, of course, there are the errands, appointments, and household tasks that need doing, although I appreciate that B and T continue to cover a good chunk of the housework that I abandoned in recent years.

The biggest problem for me remains, though, that it’s difficult for me to muster the energy and concentration I need to tackle tasks that need critical and/or creative thought and decision-making. I suppose this is complicated by my INFJ-ness, which means that nearly everything for me involves deep thought.

It’s exhausting.

There is also the reality that I am dealing with several years’ worth of grief and loss. The difficult period leading to Grandma’s death in 2016 followed by Nana’s struggles with heart failure leading to her death in 2019 followed by Paco’s decline and his death in September last year left me with a lot of deferred grief, which I have only recently realized and begun to process. There is also the personal loss of proximity to daughter E and granddaughters ABC and JG, who live across the Atlantic from us. Overlaying these personal losses is the pandemic and the upheaval, suffering, and death it has caused. The death toll in the US alone is 955,000, which, as staggering as that figure is, is probably an underestimate. The world is also in the midst of a major ideological rift between democracy and authoritarianism which is terrifying and destabilizing. I have lost the sense that the US is on a positive trajectory toward “a more perfect Union” as our Constitution terms it, which adds to my sense of grief.

It’s a lot.

I know it’s a lot and there are valid reasons that I find my concentration and energy so scant. I know I should be patient with myself, as I would be with a friend or loved one. I know I should be practicing self-care and not admonishing myself for not having the wherewithal to power through all of this and “accomplish my goals” and “be my best self” and whatever.

I try.

Sometimes, I manage it. Other times, not so much.

Look. Today, I managed to write this post.

still masked

Last Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed their methods of assessing COVID risk to include the strain on the health care system, resulting in about 70% of the population now being classified as being in low or medium risk areas, meaning that indoor masking in public places and distancing measures can be rolled back.

However, Broome County, New York, where I live, is still in the high risk category. In the even more granular Covid Act Now tracker, our risk level is rated as very high, the fourth of five levels, with 26 daily new cases per 100,000 residents as of today, February 27.

The problem is that, when New York State rescinded its mask mandate, our local government also rescinded theirs. Our local conditions don’t warrant that, but, without a rule in place, the vast majority of people will not be masking in public, which will likely delay further progress in getting our case numbers down. Another thing that would help would be increasing our vaccine booster rate, which has crept up to 34% but is still low for our state, as is the 63% full vaccinated rate.

Earlier this month when New York dropped its mask mandate, I posted that I would continue to wear an N95 in public and to avoid crowds in an effort to stay COVID free. As a participant in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial, I am supposed to be following CDC protocols. With our county still being at high risk according to the current CDC map, I am still in compliance with my obligations to the trial.

The next decision point for me will be when Broome County finally gets into a lower risk category. In discussions with my personal physicians, they have advised attempting to avoid infection entirely for as long as possible. I share in this viewpoint. Many public health commentators have gone to the less stringent goal of trying to keep out of the hospital or dying from COVID and to prevent strain on the health care system. I, however, want to protect myself, my family and friends, and my community from being infected at all, so they won’t have to deal with the threat of severe illness, long COVID, and long-term cardiovascular, pulmonary, or neurological damage that can follow infection, even in those who didn’t have serious enough symptoms to warrant hospitalization.

The CDC does say in their guidance that “People may choose to mask at any time.” That will probably be me for quite some time yet, unless our county improves dramatically soon.

Lent is about to start. I’m trying to be hopeful that our situation will improve enough that I can safely drop my crowd avoidance in time to participate in some of the Lenten and Holy Week liturgies. We’ll see.

(not) a party weekend

Here in the US, this past weekend was a major event for lots of folks. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which football fans watch for the game and lots of others watch for the innovative commercials and the halftime show. It’s a long period of time so there tends to be be lots of snacking with chips and dip and wings and pizza and beer and such. Some people are binging on winter Olympic viewing, instead of or in addition to the Super Bowl. Many people also moved their celebration of Valentine’s Day to the weekend, encouraged by restaurants who are still trying to re-build their business as the pandemic (maybe) winds down or, at least, this most recent wave.

Things were pretty quiet at our house, though.

We aren’t big football fans. We have only been watching limited amounts of the Olympics, mostly figure skating, and often via DVR so we can watch the events without all the ads and commentary. I admit that I usually watch more Olympic coverage but the complications of Chinese politics and the bizarre participation of Russia with the doping problem still hanging over them make me less enthused about these particular games. The threat of Russia to Ukraine is also casting a pall, especially since Russia has previously used the time of the Olympics to take military action, hoping the world was too preoccupied to notice.

We did observe Valentine’s Day, but quietly at home and on Monday instead of over the weekend. As I am at a point in my grief process where planning celebrations is still difficult, spouse B did the lion’s share of the work, with daughter T contributing thoughtful cards and candles for the table. I did bring home a pot of mini-daffodils and some dairy-free chocolate for B and T, a token nod to the tradition of flowers and chocolate for Valentine’s Day.

B planned and executed a lovely dinner for the three of us. He made individual Beef Wellington with mushrooms rather pâté, served with fresh sautéed green beans. For dessert, he made white chocolate mousse, which was rich and delicious. He chose that because I can no longer eat cocoa but still enjoy the luxurious melt-in-your-mouth-ness of cocoa butter.

A sweet and quiet Valentine’s Day suits me.

Thanks to B, it was what we were able to celebrate.

politics and/or science

Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve posted frequently about it, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial in which B, T, and I are participating, the evolving science on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants, the similarly evolving public health recommendations, and how these are being implemented here in my home state of New York and elsewhere in the United States. I do sometimes comment on the pandemic in the UK and globally, but I know best what happens close to home.

Throughout the pandemic, New York had been in the vanguard of following the recommendations of public health experts, avoiding the tendency we have seen in so many other states to ignore the benefits of masking, distancing, limiting crowds, getting vaccinated, isolating if infected, etc.

That ended this week.

Governor Hochul bowed to public and political pressure and lifted the mask mandate for businesses. While it is true that statewide the peak of the Omicron wave has passed and the vaccination rate is decent, my county’s risk is still rated as very high, with 44.7 per 100,000 daily cases. Technically, New York as a state is also in the very high category with 31.2/100,000 today (February 11), but it is counties like mine that are keeping the state in that risk category rather than dropping into the (merely) high category. Medium and low risk are a long way off at this point.

Meanwhile, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are recommending not only that everyone age two and over wear a mask while in public but also that those masks be N95 or similarly protective types because Omicron is so highly contagious. Alarmingly, an even more contagious omicron sub-variant has reached the US, making protective masks that much more important.

Does this sound like the proper time to end mask mandates for businesses in New York State?

Certainly not, if one is truly following the science.

The problem is that many people are tired of having to deal with the pandemic and are complaining very loudly. The politicians who had been following the science hear them and loosen the rules that had been helping to get their residents through the current wave with as little hospitalization and death as possible. This could extend the current omicron wave and increase the likelihood of yet another new variant that has the potential to be even more transmissible or evade current vaccines and treatments or cause more severe disease.

Regardless of New York State rules, I am continuing to follow medical advice, to avoid crowds, and wear an N95 when in public. Because I am vaccinated and boosted, I will still visit with people who are similarly protected without a mask. I had hoped to return to church services this weekend but have decided that I can’t do so with the daily case rate still being so high; being stationary in a room with that many people for over an hour is too much risk for me, even masked.

Sigh.

At some point, the pandemic will end and I will follow medical and scientific advice on what my “new normal” will be. I had hoped that our state policies would be an aid in this, as they had been through most of these past months, but that remains to be seen.

I’m just hoping that this latest relaxation of protections doesn’t cause even more cases than we have already suffered.

Update: Almost immediately after publishing this post, I saw reports of this study from the CDC, which shows that booster effectiveness wanes significantly after four months. Given that B, T, and I all had our boosters on the early side due to our participation in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial, I’m all the more resolute in my vigilance regarding masking, distancing, etc. While we are all still likely to avoid severe disease or hospitalization due to our longer-than-four-months-ago boosters, I prefer to try to avoid infection entirely.

over COVID?

Over the last few weeks, many people here in the United States have said publicly that they are “over COVID” or “through with the pandemic” and are going to “go back to normal” which means living like they did before SARS-CoV-2 appeared.

Guess what? Pandemics don’t disappear just because we are tired or frustrated or in denial. There were 3,622 COVID deaths reported in the US yesterday, adding to the almost 900,000 deaths in the US since the start of the pandemic and 5.7 million deaths worldwide. These staggering totals are almost certainly undercounted, as some regions don’t have the will or capacity to track and report. Also, some deaths result from lasting heart, lung, or neurological damage from COVID rather than from the active infection itself and so may not be identified as COVID related.

Some people are saying we just have to live with COVID, as we do with flu and other viruses. Thus, they are saying that it is now endemic, but here is the problem. There is a specific definition of pandemic, “(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world” (Oxford Languages). Looking at case numbers in the US and around the world, it’s obvious this is still a pandemic. We will get to a point where it is endemic, someday, through a mix of vaccination and immunity from having been infected, although no one yet knows how long immunity acquired through either route will last. Dictionary.com has a handy non-epidemiologist explainer of pandemic, epidemic, and endemic.

The subtext of being “over COVID” seems to be more along the lines of I’m tired of masking and distancing and avoiding crowds, so I’m just going to get back out there because a) I’m vaccinated/boosted so I don’t think I’ll get sick or at least not seriously so; b) I am young/strong/take vitamins/exercise so I’m not going to get sick; c) I don’t believe there is such a thing as this virus; d) you can’t tell me what to do; or e) we have to ease up on restrictions now so that we can re-institute them when the next variant or spike in cases occurs.

The thing is that a virus doesn’t care about your age or status or location. It’s only mission is to live and replicate and it will adapt to make that happen as easily and widely as possible. Exhibit A: the Omicron variant, which is wildly contagious and somewhat able to cause breakthrough infections in the vaccinated.

As regular readers here may recall, spouse B, daughter T, and I are all part of the Pfizer/BioNTech phase three vaccine trial. We are all vaccinated and boosted, although we were boosted on the early side of the curve, B and T as part of the trial that is contributing efficacy data that we see reported out in the news, and I who received a booster through the trial as soon as it was authorized for public use but before most people in my age range were eligible. I am also contributing data for the study, but I’m not on the leading edge like B and T. Therefore, while many of the boosted can get comfort from knowing that their immunity is likely still strong because the data from the trials is showing that, I don’t know if B and T might be showing a decline because there hasn’t been enough time to collect and analyze that data. I’m sure we would all love to know that booster immunity lasts a year or longer but it’s only been about seven months so far, so we can’t know. Likewise, we don’t know how long immunity lasts after infection.

I know that I am unlikely to become seriously ill, to be hospitalized, or to die if I contract COVID, but that doesn’t mean that I’m ready to be cavalier about it. I don’t want to be sick if I can prevent it by continuing with masking, distancing, and avoiding crowds. Even mild cases of COVID can result in months of symptoms, which is termed “long COVID.” As someone who has lived with a person suffering from FM/ME, which causes similar symptoms, I find the prospect of long COVID frightening.

What frightens me even more is the danger of spreading COVID to someone else. I have many friends who are older than I and at higher risk, as well as friends who are immunocompromised. Young children still are not eligible for immunization, although Pfizer/BioNTech has just applied for emergency use authorization for children 6 months-4 years of age, so perhaps that will begin in the coming weeks. I’m sure I also happen upon unvaccinated people because the fully vaccinated rate in my county is 62% and the boosted rate is only 33%. Some of the fully vaccinated are not yet booster eligible but we know that boosted people have the best chance against Omicron, so, if I am out in public, chances are that only 1 in 3 people I encounter will be a similar status to me.

Those are not great odds, especially with a variant as contagious as Omicron accounting for 99% of US cases. I have recently upped my mask protection to N95s, as I wrote about here. I’m learning how to deal with them as someone who needs progressive lenses in her glasses. The tighter fit of the N95 masks makes it difficult for my glasses to be in the correct position, so I can get a headache from eyestrain if I try to do close work for any length of time. Still, I’m trying to wear the N95s when I have to go out with a surgical mask/good quality cloth mask combo if I have to take the N95 off.

I used this site, https://covidactnow.org/us/new_york-ny/county/broome_county/?s=28791756, to find today’s Broome County statistics. (You can use it to find statistics in your area in the US. International data may be found here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/.) It rates our risk level as “Extremely High.” While other may be “over COVID,” I am not ready to take that much risk for myself, my family, and my community.

As conditions change, I will re-evaluate and adjust my behavior as I see fit. Until then, I hope that those I meet will respect my viewpoint.

I’m not “over COVID” yet.

N95s

With the immensely transmissible Omicron variant so prevalent, I’ve decided to try to get N95 masks to wear when I have to go out in public. I have been double-masking with a surgical mask under a very good quality cloth mask made by medicalwear producer Jaanuu but thought that I should probably go to an N95 mask which is designed to fit more closely and filter out 95% of particles under NIOSH standards. (NIOSH is the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.)

It’s somewhat difficult to find N95 masks in stores here. We did get a few from a home improvement store which stocks them because they are protective against dust and other particles for people doing construction or renovating. The problem is that they only carry one size which is too large for my petite face. I was able to find N95s in a size small online and a second fold-flat style that people complained about in the comments as running small, so I have ordered some. They won’t arrive until late this week or early next but I think I’ll be safe with my current mask set-up until then.

Or safe enough…

Masking is just one piece of our strategy. The three doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is my primary protection. The masks, avoiding crowds, distancing, etc. are additional measures to stay as safe as possible but, especially with Omicron, there are no guarantees.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/23/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-23rd-2022/

the pandemic – year 3

My first post about the pandemic was February 29, 2020, a Stream of Consciousness Saturday post, no less! COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was already killing people in China, other parts of Asia, and Europe but had just begun to sicken and kill people in the United States, where I live.

I’ve written dozens of posts since then about the impact of the pandemic on our lives and about spouse B, daughter T, and my participation in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial. Yesterday, B and T, who are being followed currently on the efficacy of the third dose, had an appointment for blood work to add to the data on the longevity of antibodies and other immune markers six months after their third dose. I am also boosted and remain part of the trial, although, as someone who was in the placebo group initially, I am now part of the group who received their third dose later, so I am not on the leading edge in terms of data. There is a possibility that, when Pfizer/BioNTech develop an Omicron-specific booster, we may be asked to participate in that phase of the trial as well. Meanwhile, we continue to do weekly check-ins via app and do testing if symptoms that could be COVID appear.

I am grateful that we are able to help advance the science on the vaccines which have averted millions of hospitalizations and deaths. Even though the Omicron variant causes more breakthrough cases among vaccinated and boosted individuals than earlier variants, the vast majority are still protected from serious complications and death. I’m just sad that so many people around the world, by personal choice or by lack of availability, remain unprotected.

While Omicron tends to cause less severe symptoms than some of the earlier variants, it can still be deadly. The case numbers in the US, almost all caused by Omicron at this point, are staggering, reaching record numbers. On January 11, the US reported 1.35 million new cases with 136,604 hospitalizations, both records. The case count is somewhat elevated by the fact that some states don’t report new cases over the weekend, making the Monday numbers higher, but the seven-day average is over 700,000, so there are extraordinary levels of infection in evidence. Some hospital systems are overwhelmed, especially because staffing is a challenge. Many health care workers are exhausted by the sheer volume of patients and length of the pandemic and some have left the field. Right now, there are also a lot of vaccinated and boosted staff who have developed breakthrough cases; even if they are asymptomatic, they could still be contagious, so they have to isolate until they test clear of the virus.

The difficult thing for me to accept is that so many people in the US have chosen not to be vaccinated, despite the risks to themselves, their families, and their communities. Because Omicron is so transmissible, the safest course of action is to be vaccinated and boosted, while continuing to mask in indoor public spaces, to distance from non-household members, to avoid crowds, to sanitize appropriately, and to test before (small) social gatherings. By combining all those measures, B, T, and I were able to travel to London, where Omicron was running rampant, and get home virus-free.

Yes, going into year three of this, we are all tired of having to think about COVID safety all the time, but the virus doesn’t get “tired” of mutating and infecting people. We need to do everything we can to promote public health and to protect those who because of age or health condition can’t develop vaccine protection. We have to continue to study the virus, including all variants, to assess their impacts, including how long and strong immunity is from vaccines and from infection. Unfortunately, many viruses don’t tend to confer long-lasting immunity. If they did, we wouldn’t continue to get common colds repeatedly. Current research on SARS-CoV-2 shows immunity extending to about eight months. Some suggest that immunity could stretch to five years but we can’t know that yet, as this virus hasn’t been around that long. It also looks like some of the variants, like Omicron, are better at evading immunity, whether from prior infection or vaccines. We also have to be prepared for further variants that could be even more transmissible and/or cause more severe disease.

We are still in the pandemic phase with COVID-19. The world is unlikely to be able to rid itself of the virus totally. At some point, we will reach an endemic phase, where the virus is in circulation but not causing widespread serious illness/deaths through some combination of vaccines, natural immunity, and treatments. Will year three be the final year of this pandemic? No one knows for sure, but I am trying to hang onto hope that it will be.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/13/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-13th-2022/

trip reflections

Over the past three weeks, I’ve posted frequently about the trip spouse B, daughter T, and I took to London to visit daughter E, her spouse L, our granddaughters ABC and JG, and L’s parents, with whom they live.

Here at Top of JC’s Mind, I always try to be truthful, so I must say that the best word to describe the trip as a whole is complicated.

It featured: L’s bout with Omicron that began several days before we arrived; delayed COVID test results that kept B and T in Newark overnight while I flew alone to London; bad colds for B and me; flares of chronic health conditions among several of us; a couple of bad backs; booster shot side effects; a lot of restless nights without adequate sleep; teething; upset tummies; a couple of strained backs; the news of the death of a friend back home; a badly swollen nose from JG throwing her head back into the person holding her, as toddlers are wont to do; a dearth of alone time for the introverts among us; the inadvisability of going to church for Christmas, Sundays, and Epiphany; JG’s reluctance to let us hold her if her mom was in the building; and a dead battery in our van after we flew back into Newark.

Despite all that there are many thing for which I am grateful:

That we were able to go at all, despite Omicron running rampant on both sides of the pond, and that the UK didn’t impose restrictions on private gatherings as they had done earlier in the pandemic. We appreciated the high level of compliance with masking and distancing and avoided crowds. I credit that, along with being triple vaxed with Pfizer/BioNTech and testing, for keeping us COVID-free.

Our Airbnb in E’s neighborhood, only a couple of blocks from their house. Being so close meant we didn’t need to go on public transport to visit. It also gave us the opportunity to have sleepovers, including having E, JG, and ABC overnight on Christmas Eve, just as L was able to finish up his COVID isolation period. It was fun to have Christmas stockings and breakfast with them at our place before going over to their house for Christmas dinner and presents. Four-year-old ABC was also thrilled to have some solo sleepovers with her Nana, Grandpa, and Auntie T, including our last night in town. ABC even got to help with making some Christmas cookies in our kitchen, reminding us of her days helping Grandpa in our kitchen back home in New York when she and E lived with us for over two years before E’s spousal visa came through.

Getting to have a lot of family meals together. Most were cooked at home, but we also were able to do some by delivery, including some yummy London fish and chips.

Walks in the neighborhood, in the parks, and to ABC’s school. She was on break most of the time we were there, but did have three days of school during our last week there. E and T even got to have a special sisters outing to a botanic garden. It was strange, though, to see some flowers still blooming, including roses. London was having an oddly warm spell. We did see quite a lot of holly and ivy, though, bringing to mind the traditional British Christmas carols.

Television and Internet. While we couldn’t go to church in person for fear of Omicron, we were able to watch Lessons and Carols live on Christmas Eve. I was able to watch recordings of liturgies from my local parishes back home on my laptop. We were also able to enjoy some children’s programming with ABC and JG. I especially like Bluey, an Australian series which is part of the CBeebies (BBC’s children’s television channel) line-up. ABC was also watching Frozen II and Encanto quite frequently, both of which were new to us.

The chance to renew bonds with ABC, who can remember us from when she lived with us. The opportunity to re-introduce ourselves to JG, who we met for the first time when she came to the States last August, just after she turned one. We are hoping that she will be able to realize who we are now when we videochat so that we aren’t starting from scratch again as strangers when next we meet, but it’s difficult to know if that is possible. A few months between visits is a significant chunk of a lifetime to a toddler.

Seeing E. Even though we were both tired and stressed, I appreciated the snatches of conversation we were able to have. I remember what it was like to be responsible for two little girls under five, with a lot of that time being solo. I sincerely wish I could be there more to help but that isn’t in the cards right now. The ocean is a big barrier, except for my love, sympathy, and empathy.

E will always have my heart.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/11/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-11th-2022/