How The Pandemic Gave Me Perspective

I am an only child of an only child. My mother and I live on opposite coasts. This morning at 4 a.m. I received a phone call from the nurse at the assisted-living facility saying that my mom had tested positive for COVID-19, and she’d have to be admitted to the hospital. Prior to her admission, my 90-year-old widowed mother had been living at this facility for three years. For nine months, the staff diligently tried to keep everyone safe, but a few days before they were to receive the vaccine, 16 residents tested positive. The timing could not have been worse.

My mother has always had a very resilient constitution. Over the course of her lifetime, she’s fallen off her horse more than a dozen times, and she’s survived concussions and multiple broken bones. She’s had dental surgery without Novocain, and at her ripe old age, she takes only one pill for hypertension. But regardless of her strength, I’m concerned about the hold this virus will have on her.

Before the start of the pandemic, I used to worry more about things like this. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve become jaded by the news or I’m just trusting that the universe will take care of everything. It might also be that as a grandma of five, I have enough to think about and do. Although I’ve always been a spiritual person, I’ve noticed that all the time spent alone in recent months has inspired me to my spiritual practice.

I’ve been taking online courses, setting daily intentions, meditating, lighting candles, and regularly refreshing my altar. On it, I place photos of those, like my mother, who need a little extra attention from the universe. I feel as if I’m in more of an acceptance phase of my life rather than a reactive phase. It could also be that this is what happens when you’ve lived on the planet for more than six decades. I feel more at peace and more patient with the course of events. While I’ve never lived through a pandemic, I’ve read about my grandmother’s challenges surviving the cholera pandemic during World War I, where bodies lined once-vacant infirmaries, and my grandmother, merely eleven-years old having to identify those of her parents.

No doubt, living through a pandemic has resulted in other major revelations. While most of us have accepted this new temporary reality, we’ve had to make pleasant and…