Looking Back on 2020

January 17, 2020

I'm certain that we are all looking back over 2020 and thinking where did it go?  Weighing in on our own personal thoughts of what we experienced.  What we thought sucked about it and how we went about doing things or not doing things.  How activities we once loved to take part in suddenly seemed to stop for some of us and how others just kept doing things they normally did.  I'm pretty certain that 2020 looked the same to us in some ways and completely different in other ways.

Our 2020 started out with my husband loosing his job on the 2nd.  A job that he thought he would be retiring from.  It came as a shock to him, along with a large disappointment of how the company handled it.  We also immediately lost our insurance coverage, which we didn't realize could happen either.  So we were left without any insurance coverage as soon as he left the building.  Oh yes, we could have bought the Cobra coverage at an outrageous cost, but if you're unemployed you can't really afford it.  He did his job, was responsible and showed up with a good attitude. Over the last several months a lot of employees over the age of 50 lost their jobs too, in his department and others.  That's pretty interesting.  Scandalous, I would say.   All of a sudden these employees that have been there doing their jobs for over 10+ years, suddenly can't seem to do anything right and are being written up on job performances.  I call BS.  Although, when corporate wants to downsize they find ways around it to do just that to good people who have been loyal to them.  So, that's how 2020 started for us.

In March we celebrated my birthday by escaping away to a state park inn for the weekend.  We had gift cards so it was all free and it was a nice little escape away from the harsh start of the New Year.  Then mid March hit.  News of the pandemic was spreading as fast as the virus itself.  Honestly, it's still hard for me to wrap my head around how the whole world can just be going along and then boom, everything and I mean everything changes.  I hated watching the TV, being on social media and listening to my friends theories about the pandemic.  Honestly, it overwhelmed me.  I hated hearing or seeing the daily death counts and how fast it was spreading.  I hated seeing the international news about other countries and the decisions they were making on life and death situations.  

Summer was more of an escape from the worldly news of the pandemic.  An escape from reality into full nature.  We were able to get out of the house more while staying distant.  We went kayaking a lot down in the Southern part of the state.  Our little piece of paradise where no one ever seem to be or at least very few.  We'd spend all day on the different lakes.  Kayaking, swimming, sunning and sometime hiking.  Life was always splendid while there.  Just us and nature.

Then came July 26th.  I was down in the basement doing laundry when my husband stood at the top of the stairs and called down to me to come up.  I had heard him answer the door just before and inquired who was here?  He kept saying please come up and I kept inquiring and finally he stated "Nathan was found dead".  I felt a sense of shock of what I just heard come over me with another wave of denial and headed straight up stairs in tears.  Nathan was our 28 year old son (my step-son, but always my son).  His mother had come over to tell us in person.  Nathan was found on another side of town in his car dead.  I couldn't believe what we had just been told.  My heart ached and was torn apart and a bit shocked.  How could this be?  So many questions and so many unanswered in that moment.  The next week was awful as the three of us worked our way through what needed to be taken care of, while still working through what exactly happened.  We buried our 28 year old son on August 1, 2020.

November comes and brings along with it even more generated hate surrounding the election.  I see people, family and friends spewing hatred all over social media.  The words of hate being thrown back and forth at each other in attacks.  Personal attacks with everyone no matter which side you are on or how you think as an individual, you are still lumped into being called a raciest, a hater, delusional and honestly the list goes on and on.  People attacking each other, calling each other names, destroying families, friendships and attacking people they don't even know on a personal basis.  Honestly, it's too much. Even my own daughter called me up with an agenda to attack me over the phone.  She wanted to know who I voted for and when I informed her I wasn't going to share that information with her, we had a conversation where she pretty much attacked me, and a list of questions I was suppose to answer and if I didn't answer them the way she wanted to hear them she was done with us.  I haven't spoken with her since that day and she hung up on me.  She snapchatted her sister and informed her she didn't want anything to do with any of her family anymore and for us to leave her alone.  Needless to say we are in dismay and not fully understanding her thought process.  This is from a child who was raised in a loving home and is very much loved by her family.   She leaves me in a state of confusion and deep hurt with concern.

Fall is here before we know it and as a family we are pretty much staying at home, wearing our masks when we do go out and attempting to not contract COVID-19.  We are distancing ourselves from our parents, family and friends.  Trying to do the right things.  We did not get together for Thanksgiving, but the household that my sister works in did.  My sister lives with my parents who are both in their 80's.  My sister did not work the week of Thanksgiving and so she wasn't in their home.  The week after Thanksgiving she went back to work.  She worked there all week.  Come that Friday in that same week one of the girls stated she had not been feeling well and was tested for COVID the night before and and that she thought her brother had COVID as well.  My sister was shocked that no one had mentioned it to her and the reality hit that she had been around my parents all week with no idea she has now possibly exposed them to the virus as well.  All seven people that got together for Thanksgiving in that house tested positive.  My sister started getting sick with COVID that weekend.  My parents the following week.  Our worst thoughts just came true.  Everything we had been doing to to prevent this was now active, because this family didn't think twice of anyone else and who it might affect.  Once my sister knew, it was too late; she had already exposed them.  My dad went into the hospital December 14th and died December 31, 2020.  Our dad was a very active man and was still very sharp in his brain and we thought he might make it at one point.  He choose not to go onto the ventilator, because at that point the doctor stated he wouldn't survive it even if he did.  I can't state how broken hearted it is to loose someone to this disease.  They stated on the news yesterday that every six minutes someone is dying from this.  I know we're not the only one loosing a loved one to it.  Too many are and until you walk in these shoes you really don't know first hand how quickly it happens.  You don't know how your own personal body is going to react to it.  Luckily, our mom survived it.  Although she had to be taken to the ER on Dec. 18th.  She was treated with dangerously low potassium and six hours later released to go home.  My sister had a very very severe case with all the symptoms, including an awful rash.  The only thing she thankfully escaped with trouble breathing and honestly I'm not sure how she got around that.  It took her a month to recover.  Also, I did call my daughter (the one that hung up on me and doesn't want anything to do with us) to let her know my Dad had passed and I got a "thank you" text back from her.  I just am really hurting and trying to wrap my brain around how this world became so cold and distant and how it is now functioning and how any of this makes sense to me.  

January 16, 2021 we finally got to pick Dad up from the funeral home and bring him home.  It took them 2 weeks just to be able to cremate him.  The doctor still hasn't signed the needed paper work to get death certificates in which you need to move forward on everything.  The funeral home told us that they were getting so backed up and the government too, to get death certificates.  This is so real and for those who think this is just like the common flu and for those who get very mild symptoms and think that COVID is not a big deal.  Well, I'm here to tell you it is a big deal.  That family that exposed my sister, not one of them had a bad case and thought just that, it's not a big deal.  Well, our family thinks it is a big deal.  We lost our dad, because you got together for Thanksgiving and didn't properly inform my sister of the illness in your home.

It's a sucky way to start the year and certainly a sucky way to end the year and some within the year.  I don't think I want to relive that year every again.  I don't know what 2021 looks like, but I can tell you I am looking forward to warmer weather where we can one again be out on the lakes kayaking, swimming and being one with nature.