This essay started out as a celebration of our daughter’s one year anniversary of entering the True North wilderness therapy program, the 23rd of January, 2019. I began writing a few days before, possibly on the 19th January, 2020, the day the first case of Covid-19 was diagnosed in Washington state. Our daughter was (and is of this writing) in Oregon as a student in the Dragonfly Transition program and at Southern Oregon University. Spring break was coming up and she had plane tickets to come home. After her return in early April, she would be moving into a dorm on the university campus, entering the last phase of the program, a lightly tethered foray into independence.
I didn’t know it yet, but everything was about to change.
For the first week or two I wasn’t overly concerned about the virus. I had faith that the outbreak would be contained, having no idea how fast the virus would spread or how woefully unprepared government and citizens alike were for something of this magnitude. I went about my business, including working on the essay.
Then the first cases in the East cropped up and in mid-February the virus took off. Things started moving faster and on March 8 the first Vermont case was diagnosed. March 15 schools closed. By March 23 everything in the state was officially shut down. We, 65 and 66, were already staying put and had, after much soul-searching, cancelled our daughter’s flight home the second week of March. We all agreed there were too many variables regarding health and travel to risk the trip. Never had our daughter felt so far away. It was as if the 3000 miles, which already felt impossibly far, had doubled or tripled.
In Oregon plans that had taken shape after much thought and care appeared to be in jeopardy. Would the university keep any dorms open? If they didn’t where would our daughter live? She could not stay on the Dragonfly campus any longer. Beds were needed and after a year she needed to move on. During this time the four of us, parents, daughter and therapist wrote many letters back and forth and had a few hard conversations some all together some in smaller groups. We also communicated with the program director with whom we had developed a rapport at the family workshop we attended in October about our concerns. They, Dragonfly staff, were in their own throes of responding and adapting and while we both knew we were probably being annoying, we also felt that in this novel situation, we’d be negligent not to advocate strongly for our daughter.
What made this situation emotionally challenging was that during all this last year the effort has been for us, as parents, to step back into our own lives, to trust our daughter's commitment and to trust the staff of the two programs. We’d been diligent, even exemplary parents, never blindly agreeing to anything, always willing to listen and learn and debate. Again and again, painful as it was to do, we had chosen to trust in the process.
This virus introduced a new and unknown variable into the equation. There is, we all know, a point where you abandon your regular routines to do what is necessary, if not for survival then for optimal recovery. The cause can be as minor as a broken toe or as grave as war. The issue that troubled me most was the potential for isolation. The campus was emptying out, just as our daughter was moving in. Her three roommates, all having homes within a few hours drive, were gone for the duration. Her best friend from the program had gone home to southern California. Our daughter had friends on campus, mostly from the program, but some were being careless and she felt uncomfortable with them. Could we trust that the work she had done over the last year had prepared her to face a challenge of this magnitude? To know when to ask for help?
The decision wasn’t easy, but we decided yes. I dropped my fantasies of driving a camper across the country. We would trust her and the program. And trust in ourselves too, that we would survive here on our side of this continent and be with our daughter again.
That left me, in a way, back where I started, albeit with a slightly altered agenda: How to celebrate our daughter’s achievement in this changed world? How could we both acknowledge her achievements and be mindful of the need for changing some expectations and behaviors in order to adapt to this crisis?
Up to now in this blog I’ve only had to write about facing the “ordinary” crises of being a parent whose child unexpectedly needs extra help and support and the effect on all of us as a family. The issues have been mostly about communication and boundaries. How does this virus change things? Or maybe it doesn’t as much as I think it does, even if it intensifies them. We communicate more; we accept that we need one another a little more than we might have had the circumstances remained as they were. We keep an eye on the new boundaries, so far they have held with a bit of push and pull from both sides.
I can’t help feeling how totally and completely unfair this is for our daughter to have to endure after all her hard work. She should be having fun, enjoying spring, making new friends, moving freely around the campus, looking for a summer job, learning in classrooms, going camping, taking hikes. I can only have faith that she will have these experiences in time, just not right now.
My hope is that this crisis will speed up the final part of her process of achieving independence. By the time we see her again, I expect she will know she can take care of herself. I believe she will manage because this is what she has been learning to do and also what she has wanted for herself. Perhaps it is a little trite or sentimental to say that when she emerges from this incredibly difficult experience, she will know she can get through anything. It won’t be fun, it’s not what any of us anticipated or wanted, but life does do this, just not usually to everyone on the whole planet all at once!
To my amused chagrin, the Borg once again came to mind, this time with a memorable quote: “We are the Borg. We will adapt.” While I firmly reject the Borg life-style, they do have one thing right: Being able to adapt to changing circumstances is an essential ability. There is an irony, for that ability is what has enabled human beings to survive. In that one way, we are like the Borg.
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