Writing a Pandemic

Usually, when I pop in my son’s room to check on him during the day, I see him browsing a virtual library of books on Epic, demonstrating a division problem on his white board or answering Kahoot questions on Virginia history. He navigates back and forth between classes, troubleshoots technology glitches and keeps his daily schedule pinned to his bulletin board. He’s learning. He’s organized. He’s ok.

So this morning, when I slowly opened his door to drop off a pile of clean laundry, I was surprised to see him slumped in his desk chair, tears welling up in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“We are sharing about our favorite food and THEY CAN’T HEAR ME,” he overflowed.

“Have you checked your cords? Turned up the volume? Rebooted?” I tried to assist.

“Mom, it’s over. My turn is over. I wanted to tell my friends that I love steak, especially the kind we had at the steakhouse on my birthday…” his voice trailed off and he started fixing his technology. “It’s ok, Mom.”

But it’s not ok. My son is learning, but he’s missing the opportunities for connection, sharing and expression that are normally inherent in the school day.

Writing gives us the opportunity, maybe not to cure this pandemic or eliminate the need for social distancing, but to express how all of it is affecting us. Writing is here as an outlet for the emotions and thoughts that we’re longing to share. It’s a way to be heard, even when the technology is glitching, our words are muffled behind face masks and our friends are too far away.

My son fixed his cords and rebooted. I put some laundry away and wiped some tears. And then we sat down and wrote about all of it.

Writefully,

Amanda Meer