I’m actually working fewer hours in school this year.
One of the adjustments my school made to make in-person teaching work was to make the school day shorter. This not only cuts down on the hours I’m at school working, but it also cuts down my commute time. I drive into Chicago from a suburb. My commute one-way can vary from half an hour to over an hour. Leaving work at 3:30 means that my commute is closer to half an hour and leaving at 4:30 means that I’m home closer to 5:30. School being an hour shorter actually means I get home an hour and a half earlier, which is really nice.
The shorter school hours mean that I am able a couple days a week to pick up my two older boys from school, which I really enjoy. They are both so happy to see me when I pick them up and seeing the happy children in the playground and watching the parents great their children is heartwarming. The ride back home in the car with them is fun. Sometimes we talk, other times we simply enjoy each other presence listening to one of Ollie’s favorite podcasts.
When I’m standing there waiting outside the school to pick up Ollie, I think of my father. He used to work long hours in retail when I was really young. He was thinking about making a career change at some point. He didn’t like the time away from us. One night after he came home late, he greeted me and I ran away from him. He told me in that moment it felt like I didn’t recognize me, and that he was like a stranger to me. I was probably not much older than Ethan, who is two-years-old, when this happened.
My dad made some big changes in his life and became self-employed. One of things that he did as part of this new lifestyle he created for my family was to drive me and my brother to school and pick us up. My brother and I were three years apart in age and while there was a period of time he probably drove us together to school, I mostly remember the time late in elementary school when my brother was in middle school, that he’d drive me to school and pick me up, just me and him in the car.
We’d listen to Paul Harvey in the mornings and the oldies station. He would give me music history lessons about the music he grew up with in the early 1960s, and he'd tell me stories about growing up in Taiwan.
I'll never forget how we'd listen to "Garden Party," and how "you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself." I'm glad he made sure that I learned that lesson well.
It was only half an hour a day, but it was our half an hour. I remember when I went to high school being excited that my brother, who was a senior when I was a freshman, would drive me to school. Those were good times, but that time with me and my dad in car was over. I didn’t miss spending time with my dad in the car back when I was in high school, but I miss it now...Oh, how I miss my dad.
Doing things for my children, that my parents did for me makes me feel closer to my parents. These expressions of care are a reminder that they are always with me. At the same time, these moments, cooking for my children as my mom did for me or picking-up my children from school as my dad did are also a reminder of the physical space between us.
My parents live across the country and for the past twenty years since I’ve moved to Chicago, I’ve seen, at least three times a year, every couple months. It’s been nine months since I’ve seen my parents. This is the longest amount of time I’ve been away from them, and there’s no indication any time soon that we will be together in the near future.
There is no consolation, no silver-lining to make up for the needless amount of human suffering caused by the mismanagement of this pandemic by trump and others who have profited from this tragedy. There is no meaning or “worth it" when a tragedy is caused by greed. However in all that is horrible, some small changes in my life that are a result of the pandemic have allowed me to be a little bit more like my dad, and feel a little bit closer to him.
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