Last year I posted a “Best Of” blog where I shared some of my favorite moments from the year, and I suppose I will do that for this year as well. However, I want to take some time just to reflect on this year as a whole, considering it was the most unique experience of my life, and, I assume, many others share that sentiment about their own experience of 2020.
As I get older, my life becomes less and less about work, and more and more about family. 2020 multiplied that experience ten-fold because, suddenly, I was not at work at all, and spending everyday with my wife and kids. Coming from a place of privilege, this year was not a burden or struggle for us. If anything, my job security increased as my role with the digital presence for our church became exponentially more important. The worship experience for 1000 or so people depended on me putting together the pieces of worship each week into a YouTube video. This wasn’t necessarily difficult, but I was one of a small number of people on staff with the necessary skills (and computer software) to achieve this. For two months, I did not go to the office regularly, and I didn’t step foot in the church on a Sunday. Instead, I’d wake up and cook a special breakfast for my family, and then watch the pre-recorded premiere of our church services that I helped create, making sure there were no unexpected glitches. The weather was beautiful, so after the strenuous morning of watching my phone in my robe, we’d eat a picnic in the backyard, and let the kids play for hours. Sometimes we’d play with them and, miraculously, sometimes they played together peacefully without us. I won’t say that every moment was magical, but I was astounded that my wife and I weren’t at each others’ throats by the time we emerged from our homes. I think movies most often portray marriage and love as euphoria or misery, depending on the message the artists are trying to convey. I found this year that love was comfortable. Of course, the passionate and all consuming love depicted in the movies sounds nice, and there are moments of this in every marriage. However, the comfort of being in close quarters with the same person every day for two months straight affirmed in me the true success we have found in our marriage. Reading statistics about the increase in domestic violence and depression that many faced this year, it was a subtle surprise to me that, after we concluded our lockdown, we could not name one serious disagreement we experienced during our time together. Even more than just existing peacefully, my admiration for Kristen grew exponentially. Daily I was amazed at her patience with the children, and suddenly had a new perspective on all the time she was already spending at home with the children before the pandemic. As part of her weekly routine on days when I was at work and the kids were not at pre-school, Kristen was entertaining our kids and breaking up incessant bickering for hours at a time alone. I had never pondered what that would truly be like until I faced that reality myself. Her persistent joy in laughing with and tossing the kids around at the end of the day was astounding to me as I often found myself crawling to bedtime, starving for a moment without a child demanding attention and care.
Even with the daily march through a repetitious and mundane experience, the family time was, without a doubt, a blessing for all of us. I believe my children were at the perfect age for a lockdown- too young to be afraid, we did not have to answer hard questions. Additionally, they’d much rather spend time with their mother than any of their friends from pre-school, so the quarantine was a dream come true for them. When their classes shut down, we wondered how we would survive without the assistance and regular parenting break that school provided and, to be honest, the days did meld together in some ways due to the extreme repetition of our daily experience. In the moment, this sometimes felt like an intense struggle, but looking back, this was not as burdensome as I had imagined it would be. In fact, I know now that the amount of hours together truly were a unique perk to this insane year. Coming from a family of divorce, growing up I would sometimes calculate how much time I actually spent with my dad, who I hadn’t lived with since the age of two. Seeing him every Wednesday night for two hours, every other weekend, and then alternating major holidays (throwing in a solid month in the summer), it was not hard to see that if the hours spent with a person’s father were represented by coins in a jar, my jar would be far less full than that of my classmates who lived with both of their parents. I didn’t actually do the math, but by the end of quarantine, my four year old daughter had probably accumulated more hours with me than I had with my father by the time I made it to high school. There was a certain comfort I found in that. I did not spend every moment fully attentive to my children, but by proximity, I believe they each experienced something in a way I never had- two solid months with both of their parents in the same home every single day.
If you think about it, few people in the world before this pandemic could say they had a similar experience as children, regardless of their parents’ marital status. We were one of the families that can truly say this year blessed us because of the sheer volume of hours spent together as a unit. I proclaim that with a tinge of guilt, knowing that so many others had a completely different experience, and I hate that for them. What God used to bless me was a crucible for others. It is not fair in any sense of the word, and I cannot claim to understand why He does what He does, but I believe He is working in each our lives in a unique way. Although this pandemic is still not over, I am looking back and seeing the long list of benefits for me and my family from a year spent in very close quarters. To wrap up 2020, we made sure to continue one of our COVID friendly holiday traditions, taking our family self-portraits in October, and sending off Christmas cards to friends and family. Below are a few images of our family, in the midst of a pandemic, pretending everything is normal, and documenting memories that will hopefully become framed heirlooms in a few decades. -J
