Dreaming Of What Might Have Been
In a typical time (Remember back to a typical time?), this week would have been a flurry of activity as we finalized needs for our Italy trip. Bags would be packed up, toiletries would have been purchased, I would have the passports out and in a stack.
We would have driven to Atlanta in the late morning on this coming Sunday, hugging the cats before we headed off on a three-week adventure; making time to have a meal with Barton and his family before he drove us to the airport.
Instead Barton and I laughed on the phone yesterday, talking about how our families are doing, what changes we have seen in our routines, what changes are ahead for our world.
For our family, there are no pre-trip anxieties. No dark dreams of travel disasters or plans gone astray. I won’t be holding hands with a stranger on the plane, nor getting yelled at for blocking the men’s restroom door in a small Italian town.
We timed our trip to overlap with Spring breaks for two sets of beloved families. They both have breaks that are “late” compared to the schools in Tennessee. If not for their timing, we might already have been in Italy, singing with natives out a balcony window, filled with anxieties of a different sort.
I’m melancholy about missing this trip, but certainly grateful for how it has worked out. We’re comfortable here at home together, this tribe of mine. There’s food and comfort and warmth. Dreams of spring and gardening are pleasant ways to pass the time. There are many walks together, waving at neighbors from a distance, laughing about a movie we watched or dreams we had.
We’ve learned in our travels that the quirks and wrinkles and “things gone wrong” always make the best stories afterward. Having to jump off a train mere seconds before it pulls out of the station is stressful in the moment, but gosh it makes me laugh to think about it now.
May it be so with this misadventure of this “safer-at-home” time, as our state is calling it. I’ll tell the grandchildren stories of these days and weeks all snuggled in together, checking in with friends and family more frequently, learning how much I needed to see other’s faces to know they were truly okay, realizing how the true heroes are the UPS delivery person, and the stocker at Aldi’s, and the teachers.
The doctors and nurses, we all knew they were heroes. They are just proving it once again.
Tonight I’ll dream of Italy, after I pray for the wellbeing of all.
