We'll Get There

     I’ve been awake since 4 a.m., a stream of various movie scenes running through my head.

The first thing I did when I finally rolled out of bed a few minutes later was to jump on the internet and find the latest statistics on the pandemic. The movie scene that brings to mind is from “Signs”, when Mel Gibson’s brother and two kids are obsessed with watching the latest news on the TV about the global invasion of aliens.

Then I read online about social distancing and how many states (including mine) have instituted a stay-at-home policy. My head jumps to the scene from the old movie classic, “Ben-Hur”, where Charlton Heston’s friend takes food to his mother and sister in the leper colony. She sets the food down and then backs off ten or twenty feet so they can come and get it without having direct contact. It makes me think of our elderly, holed up in their homes, waiting for their kids to deliver food to them on their front porch. No hugs or handshakes, only shouting across the yard.

Of course, the entire pandemic is like any of a number of apocalyptic movies. I keep thinking that I’ll wake up and be back in my real life. Instead, just like in those thrillers, one thing after another keeps getting piled on our hero. You know - he has a plan to save the world but it keeps getting thwarted in one way or another.

Just like how Hubby’s doctor’s appointment turned out on Monday. Instead of getting released to go back to work with his broken arm fully healed, he has to have surgery tomorrow. He was so devasted. The screw they put in his bone on February 7 didn’t hold, so now they have to put in a plate.

The upside of that is that maybe there wasn’t going to be much work for him to go back to (but then again, is work comp going to figure that out and stop paying him?). And then, our vacation to Tennessee the end of April has to get canceled due to the pandemic and he wouldn’t want to drive all the way there with his arm in a sling anyway.

But with that, “The Wizard of Oz” comes to mind. Not just singing that somewhere over the rainbow things will be better, but more like chanting “I want to go home”. As in home to my childhood, where the biggest stress was some boy teasing me on the playground.

But somewhere, out there, skies are blue. And we’ll get there.