Falling In

chris field
4 min readSep 20, 2021

It was March 13th, 2020. Remember? Sure you do. We all do.

A man kissing a young, smiling child on the cheek
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I can see light. After so many months, I can see light.

It was March 13th, 2020. Remember? Sure you do. We all do. For me, I was picking up my son from a half-day of school. My daughter was already home, sick with the flu (the actual flu). Then, that was it for eighteen months.

Eighteen long, glorious, amazing, challenging, mind-bending months home with my two elementary school-aged children. First, I tried to teach them (We can do this!). Then the schools wanted to teach them via printed workbooks (This is the best you can do?). Then the schools send out laptops and taught via video (Hello, Minecraft!). Then I took them to visit every freaking national park, state park, county park, creek walk, reclaimed landfill, and tree memorial I could find across the tri-state area (Daddy, my feet hurt).

Finally, we settled into an uneasy alliance, the school district, my kids, and me. I would not try to teach them Spanish or give them daily quizzes or lose my temper because I was not working. They would not expect me to be a cruise ship entertainment director from 8AM until bedtime. But, it seems they secretly agreed to still not pick up their wet towels off the bedroom floor, so I was still a personal valet.

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