Friday the 13th

"What were you doing when {blank} happened?" "Where were you when you heard the news?" 

You know those moments, right? The ones that you'll always remember...where you were, what you were doing, when the planes hit the World Trade Towers? Or when Regan was shot? When the space shuttle Columbia exploded? Those are moments that are ingrained into my memory. I'm sure those older than me have similar experiences of when JFK died, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. 

This is what I was doing when the pandemic started. Or at least when it started in earnest for me. Of course we've been hearing about the coronavirus causing havoc in China since around Christmas, and then Europe after the New Year. There has been much talk the past couple months about how seriously we should take it. Should we potentially prepare for this and maybe buy a few extra grocery items to store in our pantries and freezers, or is the media overhyping it? The week leading up to this particular day had already been a little unnerving. Things were closing and cancelling. The church had already announced changes to stake and general conferences, missions, etc. "Dear Evan Hansen" that we'd just seen on Monday had announced they were closing down and cancelling any future shows on their tour. (I am hugely thankful our tickets were for early in the week seeing as those who were scheduled to go Friday or Saturday ended up being out of luck.) Each morning this past week I've woken up thinking, "Well, surely today won't be as strange as yesterday...nothing can top that!" But then it would and we'd go to bed reeling once again. 

Friday I decided to paint my room. I've had the paint for a few months but have been procrastinating. Painting is not my favorite thing to do, even if I love how it looks afterwards. I was listening to a podcast when I got a group text from a neighbor asking if we'd seen the news? She joked about her kids now being able to call her Mrs. K-----. Hot on its heels came a text from Lilian rejoicing about the fact that schools across Utah had been closed for the next two weeks. (Three weeks for our district since Spring Break was scheduled for the week afterwards.) What??? I climbed off my ladder and immediately turned on the Governor's press conference, already in session, and listened to the news while I continued to paint. This school closure, though not entirely unexpected, was what cemented the seriousness of this, what finally made it more real than it had been before. "And so it begins" was the thought that went through my head. I don't know how long this will last. I don't know what other restrictions, closures, cancellations, or precautions might be in our future. But wow, this Friday the 13th will always be a memorable one for me.