During the Pandemic, I don’t think I really understood what I lost because I was afraid of losing what I had. My mother was going through chemo at the time and my family’s main concern was not letting her get sick because if she did it meant her passing away. My father at the time was facing a hard decision.
He was worried about his wife and children, but he was also told that his building would be shut down and he could either retire, move to another state to continue his job, or work for a rival company.
My sister had just started college and less than 3 months into her second semester of freshman year, she came back home and she had class from the confines of her room.
I was going through something similar. My mental health had taken a drop from my mothers health and the onset of the pandemic. I worried that if I went outside I would get it and I would infect my family. But I felt the need to be the one to go to the store or go pick up medicine or just, go outside for whatever we needed because my sister and I were the two who were the best protected against COVID-19 simply because our immune systems were stronger.
Before my sister came home from college, I told myself that I had to step up and help around the house because my mother couldn’t.
When my father, my sister, and I all were doing things during the day, I worried about how my family was doing.
I wanted my sister to enjoy college but she wasn’t getting the experience that I am so grateful to have. My father was overly stressed and I often heard him let out a large sigh but when I asked him if he was alright he told me he was.
COVID-19 will always be something that we will always carry with us. Our children will hear about what happened and how the world changed. I was making dinner for my family at 15 while also trying to get my homework done. My sister was an 18 year-old who should have been away to college having a good time, exploring the world but she wasn’t.
I grew up so much in just 2 years that I don’t think I really got to enjoy high school. Sure there were parts of it I really enjoyed but overall, I stopped going to high school when I was a sophomore and started seeing it as something I had to do before I got home and got to work. It wasn’t a time of being carefree like it was for my friends.
