Today I am happy because Marshall’s birthday gifts all arrived on time. Yay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still feel a little bad, though, because his gifts are so paltry compared to Livia’s last birthday gift. She got a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It was a big, expensive gift that was fun for the whole family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember that trip to GWL very clearly. COVID-19 had only just (as far as anyone knew) landed on American shores. The virus was so new that it didn’t have a name yet. It was referred to simply as the “novel coronavirus.” I remember saying to my husband, “I’m glad we’re here now, because in a couple of weeks it won’t be safe to travel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Little did I know. It might already have been unsafe to travel in the Boston area, one of the early hot spots. Not long after, we went to a fencing tournament. We got sick afterward. Nothing big, just something that made us feel run-down. Later we wondered, “Could it have been the coronavirus?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Probably not, but we’ll never know. And because we have no immunity that we know of, we’re not going to travel for a long, long time. It’s sad, because there’s nothing Marshall wants more right now than a summer vacation. I promised him that we’ll take a vacation as soon as things get better, no matter what time of year it is. But it’s just a promise, and no matter how much we mean to keep our promises, sometimes we can’t. There are no guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I am happy today, because Marshall will have a cake with candles on it for his birthday. We will sing to him. He will have presents to open. And he will, we hope, have a happy birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I am happy because Marshall’s birthday gifts all arrived on time. Yay! I still feel a little bad, though, because his gifts are so paltry compared to Livia’s last birthday gift. She got a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. … Continue reading