Life Changed A Year Ago Today

We choose to wander deserted beaches instead of crowded cities – Coastal beach near Sintra, Portugal

A year ago today, my son and I woke up in my best friend’s home in Nijmegen Netherlands to news that a gentleman in Kirkland Washington had died of COVID. My hometown was flashing across the news on the other side of the world, and the very hospital that I had just hung my paintings was at the epicenter.

Like one of those movies where the camera zooms in, at that very moment it dawned on us that our lives were going to be turned upside down. Instead of skipping across Europe, my son and I tiptoed through our dream vacation in The Netherlands and Portugal, avoiding crowds, carrying our hand sanitizer like nuggets of gold, and ultimately donning the n95 masks that my hubby had tracked down in January because he figured it out before the rest of us. And that persistent cough from the guy on the airplane (during the March 13 traumatic trip back to the states) wasn’t just annoying, it was terrifying.

It’s so hard to remember what I was doing on a specific day a week ago, but the memory of the moment when we realized that COVID was everywhere, is seared in my memory.

Where were you when you first realized life was going to get a whole lot different in 2020?