I consider myself a strong woman. It’s my nature to hold up during a crisis and to plow my way through. Typically, when it’s all over, is when I can set time aside to grieve or to feel things fully. I’m able to compartmentalize in this way, and always have been. Not that that’s a good thing, it just is. Everyone handles crises differently. This is how I have learned to manage mine.

We have been in quarantine for just over 5 weeks now. Complete quarantine. No contact with others except for a weekly grocery drop-off at the door or over the fence. No drive-thrus, no take-out, no visiting at the end of the driveway – nada. The pain of not seeing my other children is crippling some days.

We’ve done this for a very good reason.

Our first grandchild, Miss Sawyer, was born into this mess that is the world right now. In order to be able to be with her, we can’t be with anyone else. I know you know how it feels. Whether you’re social distancing, quarantined, or on the frontlines of whatever the government has classified as essential work today, you have your own stories of going through all of the emotions it brings and you have your own struggles. I hope that you have your own questions too.

Yesterday, Emily sent me this photo of her brother Samuel meeting Sawyer for the first time and it broke me. He’s peering through the glass at this miraculous being. I wept. There is no world in which this is ok for me. Sawyer met her great grandparents & her other aunts and uncles for the first time the same way. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, should be a beautiful experience, and Corona has taken it away. We’ve allowed it to be taken away.

There’s so much conflicting information now and so many ways to look at this that my head spins. I do the “right” thing, only for Sawyer. If not for her, our lives would be much different right now.

Some of this scares me to the bone. I wonder what’s coming next.

I wonder how it’s been so easy to lockdown the entire world, crush the world economy, and have so many on the edge of their seats, waiting for an injection to save them.

What kind of a world it makes sense to suppress our immune systems by not allowing us to fight off something that the vast majority of us would be able to.

I wonder why we didn’t lock up sooner with a complete lockdown instead of allowing much of the country to continue on, in effect dragging this out.

I wonder why we didn’t lock down those at the highest risk and allow the rest of the population to develop herd immunity. Yes, some will die. Some will die regardless.

I wonder why our stats for deaths by all other causes have decreased so rapidly.

Or why nobody is dying of the flu right now.

I wonder why every news channel is showing me exactly the same video but calling it a different city.

Or why the testing tents are empty.

I wonder at the decisions made to quit businesses or jobs to instead take government bailouts.

Or why I’m doing what I’m doing if I don’t fully believe it’s the right thing.

I wonder why we are sacrificing the health of our immune systems when they are needed most.

Or how much longer it will be before more people start to turn on each other.

We’ve already taken on the role of judge and jury with our neighbors and friends, what’s next?

I wonder how many will completely revolt as we’re starting to see in US cities now.

Or how long lockdown can go on before mental health is the next glaringly obvious crisis.

I wonder how many more mass murders and suicides are to come because others broke.

Or how on earth we come out of this.

I cried yesterday for every mom who is working from home, schooling her children, managing a side hustle and a home. How will she cope?

Thought about the single parents who are trying to work and have nobody to keep their children.

I cried for the broke who depend on food banks to fill the gaps.

Broke when I thought about every person in an abusive relationship.

I cried for every person who was barely hanging on by a thread before this happened.

For the children who cannot understand and cannot escape.

I cried for the newborn babies who will not meet their aunts and uncles and grandparents and for their parents who desperately need the support.

What about the mom who has postpartum depression and is all alone?

Who cares about the dad who goes to his essential job and leaves her alone all day without support?

What about the elderly who are (God forbid) in a horrific situation in a nursing home?

What about the senior citizens who live alone and are now completely isolated from the outside world, feeling disconnected and alone.

So many what about and what if’s. My soul could not handle it anymore, but my mind won’t stop wondering. And my heart could not stop bleeding for all that has been lost.

Yesterday, I broke.