To Be Made Well by Amy Julia Becker;

Author:Amy Julia Becker;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firebrand Technologies
Published: 2022-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Barrier of Anxiety

While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

—Mark 5:35–36

I wasn’t worried when I first heard about COVID-19. For those early months of 2020, it seemed like a distant and abstract problem. I kept reminding myself that the flu kills tens of thousands of people every year, and I had never registered it as a major threat. I thought about all the ways our modern culture invites us to experience anxiety. The alerts and alarms in cars flashing danger at every turn. The headlines suggesting that every storm could be catastrophic. The product labels warning about death by choking, swallowing, suffocation. I figured COVID-19 would be similar: a big-deal news story with red alerts that would soon enough become as irrelevant as the fear that the world would end at midnight at the start of the year 2000.

But by early March, hospitals in Italy were overwhelmed. It became clear that COVID-19 had made its way to the United States. I started bumping elbows with friends instead of offering a hug in greeting. We made little self-deprecating jokes about standing six feet apart. We wondered if our kids might be out of school for a few weeks. Then William’s church service trip was canceled. Our plans to take the girls into Manhattan for the day were postponed indefinitely. The stock market plummeted. Schools began to close. Peter began fielding emergency response calls daily with other heads of school all trying to decide whether to allow students back on campus for the spring term. I still wasn’t worried.

Or at least that’s what I told myself. I made a plan for the few weeks we would be at home. We got together with friends for walks outside. We created lists of activities to inspire the children not to default to screens at every turn. When I looked to the future, I reassured myself that we would be back in school shortly, that my parents would not contract the virus, and that the rest of us were young and healthy and didn’t need to be afraid.

Then we received word that our kids would not return to school in person that year. That summer camp was canceled. That indoor gatherings were unlikely to be safe, indefinitely. That kids would miss out on graduations and sports seasons. That adults would postpone weddings. That millions of people had lost their jobs. That lines for food banks and emergency support stretched through parking lots and city blocks. That hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people around the globe would die.

I had it relatively easy. Still, the work of “pushing our family up the happy hill,” as one of my friends blithely named it, was exhausting. My descent into drinking copious amounts of wine began. Many evenings all five of us retreated to our various corners of the house, with screens at the ready.

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