Celebrating Mother‘s Day

Mother’s Day came and went last weekend lost within this pandemic. Like all families ours tended to celebrate Mother’s Day in a similar way each year with a family day culminating in a dinner that was often ordered in Chinese food. It was a low-key but pleasant day.

I can’t really remember Mother’s Day 2020 during the first lockdown of the pandemic. I think we were all still in shock trying to just cope with everyday life. This year though part of normalcy returned. Flowers and a card found their way to our apartment along with a short and well distanced visit where we talked about what the younger generation was up to. Then at dinner time a bag containing our share of the Chinese food was delivered down here for us to enjoy. And so we shared the meal together while apart. The bonus from our point of view was that we got to keep our leftovers for the next day! We are finding new ways to do old things.

It made me think of the Israelites spending the 40 years in the desert after their escape from Egypt. They must have had to find new ways to do old things as well; new things to eat, new things to wear, new ways to celebrate. People died along the way and others were born. The people who finally arrived in the promised land were not the same people who fled Egypt. They had changed.

And so this pandemic is changing all of us. When it is over we will not be the same people we were before it started. Deep down inside each of us we will have changed. We will have a new appreciation of what each of us finds most valuable in life. But most importantly of all we will know that we are survivors who have finally reached the promised land.

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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