At the 2022 State of the State address in Pierre, Lt. Governor Larry Rhoden said South Dakota might be one of the only places in the country where unprecedented times have led to such positive results. He was speaking, of course, of our economic vitality and a burgeoning state budget, ripe for legacy investments that could benefit generations of South Dakotans.
Though I’m sure some people celebrated his comments and others criticized them, I’m less interested in value judgments at this stage of the pandemic and more interested in how we take measure of the past two years.
In the early days of March, 2020, I decided it would be vital to mark the milestones of these days: The governor’s first press conference. The first closed school buildings. The first canceled basketball tournaments. The first COVID death. And, most hopeful of all, the arrival of the first vaccine, which I imagined racing in like a polio vaccine to a rural locale back in the days when vaccines travelled by railcar or dog sled. Imagine the fanfare!
I took notes. I kept records. Every day was something new. Every day was so “unprecedented” we had to stop using the word on air lest we sink into the mires of broadcasting cliché.
Today, two years after the first confirmed COVID case in South Dakota, those little floor circles that urge me to give other shoppers space in various stores are scuffed by hundreds of heavy footsteps. The paper hearts supporting health care workers have faded and been peeled from windows. My child got sick and came home from college. My child got well and went back to college. I set up a radio studio from my home. I returned to the SDPB Sioux Falls studio. Daycares closed and opened and closed again. Masks went on, were discarded, went back on, were scorned.
Still the question remains. How do we measure the past two years? Hospitalizations? Visitor spending? Deaths? Scientific achievement?
Pandemic loss came to my house early; maybe it did to yours as well. Two years ago, in June, we drove to Minneapolis to sit with my brother and talk about his life and how long it would last. We slept in a tent in his back yard so as not to bring infection inside. COVID meant his trips to the cancer clinic had become solo journeys, but he was never truly alone. His nurses and doctors wrapped him in love and skill. Still, he couldn’t see well, so he got lost in the hallways. He was afraid, though I don't like to think of him like that.
We remained hopeful nonetheless. We ordered flowers for his wedding and then canceled the order when we learned of his death. Unprecedented.
I didn’t want to take time off work, and not because I’m devoted, mind you. It was simply because I longed to pretend he was alive and nothing had changed. Everything had changed, of course. I took time away to mourn.
One day, my colleague Josh Haiar showed up at my doorstep with gifts from SDPB folks across the state. I remember how quickly he delivered packages and pandemic-dashed away. Friends had baked and shopped and knitted and painted for me. I was given bottles of South Dakota wine and South Dakota snacks. I was presented with original art and Bible verses and even jokes to pull me from one grief-laced moment to the next. I’m guessing if you’ve suffered during this time, you have similar stories of kindness arriving at your doorstop in its own unruly way. I love hearing those stories, even though it means I have to carry the sad parts of the story as well.
One colleague’s wife made a prayer shawl for me, rich with intricate knots and jewel tone yarns. I draped it over my shoulders, day after day. Then I decided I needed it more often, and I folded it under my pillow, night after night. Sometimes the shawl was wet with tears when I awoke the next morning. Every now and then it still is. Unprecedented.
Since those early days, other coworkers have fallen ill. Their children have gotten sick, which frankly, I find painful to think about. More of our beloveds have died. Others of us have fallen in love. Married. Welcomed new grandchildren. Joyfully retired. Maybe that’s what’s happened in your family too. It's complicated, isn’t it?
Do I measure this pandemic by the number of statewide hospitalizations or by the weddings I missed? By the babies I’ve held or the babies I haven’t been able to hold?
After I was fully vaccinated, my nephew would hug me, wrap his wiry arms around my waist and declare “COIVD’s over” as he squeezed. He’s recovering from the virus as I write this. He’s 10 and having trouble getting his breath back to his chest, but he’ll be okay. My mother has COVID for the second time. Her doctor says there aren’t enough antiviral treatments at the moment. He orders her to drink lots of water and sleep. On the phone she sounds — how shall I say this — unprecedented. She coughs into the phone and tells me I shouldn’t worry so much.
Two years in, even if I try, I cannot pretend this pandemic isn’t happening in my back yard. And yet I find comfort in the prayer shawl, especially when I count each stitch as I fall asleep. I find joy in my daughter’s raucous laughter via FaceTime. I find love in a quiet dinner downtown, a glass of wine, and a tender conversation. I find contentment in an open movie theatre with reclining seats.
I think I’ll measure this next year of pandemic times in prayer-shawl-stitches. In radio episodes. In texts from friends. In the holding of hands. In lines of poetry.
How will you measure yet another unprecedented South Dakota year? I encourage you to share your story with someone you love. Or send it to me: [email protected]. I’ll take good care of it.
