Dad and Daughter Reflections on the Pandemic

The 2-year mark of the pandemic is behind us. Maybe you, like me, barely noticed this milestone over the weekend. Maybe not noticing it is a good sign.

Well, in unrelated news, I made yesterday "take your daughter to work day" for me and my oldest, Nizhoni. I was excited to have her see a bit of dad's work life. Maybe not the most exciting way for a teenager to spend one of her precious days of spring break, but she went along with the plan.

Nizhoni, soon to be a high schooler, is very important to this Writing to Heal journey. It was back in March 2020 where she said something at the dinner table that started me writing. She has also inspired other posts, including her role as "Miss B" the teacher and as she went through her Kinaalda coming of age ceremony.

Well, it seemed like a good use of our day together to write a piece. And so we did. The format was simple - both of us came up with two questions about the pandemic and then wrote our reflections to the questions without seeing what each other wrote. No edits were made to each other's answers.

If you have time today, find a question or two below and write your own reflection. And feel free to post it as a comment to this blog.

If you could do something different in how you responded to the pandemic in those first months, what would it be?

Nizhoni: My first reaction was to panic or be scared because it was scary to have everything shut down by a virus. If I could have reacted differently, I would have been calmer because I couldn't stop it by being scared. By calmer I still mean being safe and not going out but having more faith that it would be resolved instead of having a fixed mindset of it being here and there's no solution.  

 

Daddy: I remember being tied to the news in a way that was unhealthy in those first months. Yes, it was a way to understand what was happening, from big picture health orders to the science of how to best protect yourself and those around you. But it was an overload of COVID information at the exact time that we were cut off from normal social interactions. The news became one of my closest companions in those first months, and if I were to do it over, I would have a strict limit on how much I consumed.

Ten Years from now, what will you remember most about the pandemic?

Nizhoni: The thing I will remember most about the pandemic is feeling trapped. It was hard going weeks without seeing friends and family outside of your home. At the beginning you couldn’t go out to a park or exercise because of how contagious it was. 

Daddy: I realized at the time, with you Nizhoni and our family of six at home, that we would never have this amount of time together for the rest of our lives. We will get back to busy lives lived outside of our house. Not too far away, you all will move on to college and will have your own lives and families. This was a unique moment where we got to really live and breathe and work and eat with each other. There was a sense of safety and comfort in sharing this intimate space together with you all, and that will be something I always remember. 

How will the pandemic affect us for the rest of our lives?

Nizhoni: Yes, it will definitely have an effect on me. If I see someone sick or coughing its now just a reaction to give them some distance or put a mask on. When I am older and get sick, quarantining myself is what I would do even if it wasn’t bad but for the sake of not getting anyone else sick around me. Having someone get sick from you is a feeling you don’t want so the pandemic has definitely raised my caution level.

Daddy:  I hope that I will be that much more present in the moment, grateful for the moment as a result of the pandemic. It taught us how quickly what we have planned and what we think should be the way things happen can completely change. It showed us that all of this is out of our control. Nizhoni, I hope I can live the term “Inshallah” that Muslims qualify everything with much better. This means “God willing” and even if you are meeting someone in 5 minutes, you say “Inshallah” understanding that you cannot control the next few seconds, much less 5 minutes into the future. By not clinging to the future, I hope to live for fully in the present.

What do you see our relationship with masks being in the future?

Nizhoni: Honestly, I never see masks disappearing. They will be here for the comfort of those scared of illnesses. If not for that then masks will be there to protect lungs from pollution. Masks were here before the pandemic, and they will be after. 

Daddy: They make good slingshots (dad joke). Hmmm. I think we will know masks to some degree, and they won’t disappear completely. I think along with wearing a mask when we are sick, we will be more aware of the ways we can prevent getting others sick more so in the future. In the past, you went to school or work with a fever and mild viral symptoms. Now, I think we would feel guilty doing so, as we think of the risk we are to others.