The Silver Lining to the Pandemic Cloud

"Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough." — Oprah Winfrey

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed “countless” lives and has had devastating impacts on the livelihoods of millions. Not to mention the toll the pandemic has taken on the country’s collective mental health.

My 2020 Graduates

Overnight, our lives were turned upside down. Regrettably, we had not one but two graduating seniors — one in high school and one in college.

It should have been a year jam-packed with graduation ceremonies, formal events, and parties, but alas, all of them were canceled for the foreseeable future.

My 2020 College Graduate

My son was a senior at a large public university when, in March 2020, his university was abruptly closed, and all the students were sent home. From then on, all his classes moved to a remote format.

Fortunately for him, his classes lent themselves well to distance learning. Unfortunately for him, he could not say goodbye to his friends or teachers.

My son had informed me a couple of years earlier that since he was earning dual degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, he would have three graduation ceremonies.

He was expecting to have two departmental ceremonies and one university-wide commencement.

Initially, the university informed us that all the convocation ceremonies would be virtual in the spring but would be rescheduled to in-person ceremonies at a later date when it was safe to have them.

Recently, we were told the departmental ceremonies had been canceled outright. The only ceremony in-person would be the university-wide commencement — a considerable affair where the graduates would not even get to walk across the stage.

My son and his classmates were devastated upon hearing this news. My son — who had graduated with high honors — had worked too hard not to be recognized individually for all his efforts. Graduation was his one chance to reflect on all his accomplishments.

Much to his dismay, he received his cap and gown in the mail. The online ceremony was disappointing. The stream was often choppy, involved pre-recorded remarks, and showed photos of the graduates on the screen along with their names.

The only consolation was that he knew that millions of other students were in the same boat with him.

My 2020 High School Graduate

My daughter was enjoying her senior year at a private international school when things came to an abrupt halt. Her graduation was turned into a drive-through event, and her senior prom was canceled.

As an IB art student, she had anticipated having an exhibition of all her artwork at the school. Instead, the latter was turned into an IB Diploma Visual Arts Exhibition.

We do not blame the school as they did their best under the circumstances. Nonetheless, it was simply not the ending to the school year she had envisioned.

Both my kids could not have a proper graduation party, as it was illegal and unsafe to host large groups outdoors before the vaccine.

They had to make do with a small outdoor get-together with their closest friends on our backyard patio. It was a sad state of affairs for the class of 2020.

Family Bonding

Notwithstanding, the pandemic brought us closer together as our family was living together under one roof for nine months — the longest amount of time we had been together in years.

Our family had never spent this much time together as adults. It may not have been by choice, but we certainly made the most of it.

We had always been leading crazy busy lives; however, suddenly, time was all we had. We had more time to sit back and relax over our morning cup of coffee and linger over breakfast instead of dashing off to be somewhere.

We were forced to slow down and discovered that we appreciated the more relaxed pace of life.

We took long walks in nature together, exploring different walking trails in the area. When we were outside reconnecting with the great outdoors, it was almost as if the pandemic ceased to exist.

Families were out walking, talking, and laughing; everyone was happy and carefree. We fed the ducks and geese by the lakes near our home and snapped pictures and videos of nature.

We failed to realize how much of Earth’s beauty goes unnoticed when we are preoccupied with our busy lives.

We worked out together on YouTube videos. My son was a huge fan of the Insanity workouts, while my daughter preferred Chloe Ting workouts.

My go-to online fitness videos were the Fitness Blender and SarahBeth Yoga ones. We still missed working out at our local gym, but these home workouts were the next best thing.

We cooked and baked together in the kitchen, experimenting with different recipes from numerous food blogs — some successfully and some not so successfully.

We prepared familiar favorites, including butter chicken and exotic fare such as Pad Thai. We baked everything from chocolate chip cookies to banana bread and everything in between.

We shopped at weekly farmer’s markets in the neighborhood to help support local economies. It was wonderful to interact with the vendors selling their products in a safe outdoor environment with everyone masked up.

We ordered takeout from our favorite restaurants to support family-owned and local businesses. It became an almost weekly ritual, where we would have a gourmet dinner delivered to our door and sit around the dinner table enjoying the meal family-style. We never missed dining out at restaurants, thanks to our newfound ritual.

We binge-watched television shows and movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Our favorites were Family Karma, Indian Matchmaking, and The Queen’s Gambit. We did not even miss going to the cinema.

Pandemic Travel

Amid all the madness, we even made a brief journey to another state to get our son all settled into his graduate student apartment.

We boarded a crowded flight in the middle of a global pandemic (donning face shields and double-masking), but we would have done it again in a heartbeat for him.

Final Thoughts

A silver lining to the dark pandemic cloud has undeniably been forging closer bonds with family.

The time together has enabled us to get some stolen moments back with our children and improve our relationships with them.

We have also developed a greater appreciation of the important things in life.

Now that we are returning to some semblance of normalcy, we will undoubtedly have lots of wonderful memories of those times despite the challenges we all faced.

This story originally appeared on Medium.