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Pandemic 101: Teacher, Age 7

When the seriousness of this pandemic hit, I felt that terrible anxiety as fears of the unknown began to flood every thought and feeling.

But I also felt a strange sense of familiarity: the underlying tension, the unrelenting nervousness. I’d felt that during my first husband Robert’s bout with cancer. So I reacted in the same way: I sprang into action.

Of course, action looks different for everyone. But for me, when Robert was ill, we began a fundraiser for cancer research.

Returning to form, I now began planning. We would make podcasts and YouTube videos with a strict production schedule for the whole family, all to keep the despair and sense of helplessness at bay.

But Robert lost his fight with cancer over a decade ago, and my daughter, age 7, had no experience with a life upended or a world full of worry. She dutifully succumbed to my newly organized schedule of “academic time,” “creative time” and chores without the company of friends and teachers.

But after a few days, one evening at bedtime, she desperately searched for her stuffed toy – a sheep, once white, now grey — that I’d thought was long forgotten. 

“It’s late,” I told her. “We can just find him tomorrow.” 

“No!” she insisted. “I need to find him, now!” 

“Why?” I asked, more irritable than I like to admit.

“Because,” and then she began to wail. “He’s my friend from when things were better!”

Grace Lin had to search her household to unearth her daughter's long-ago-discarded, beloved stuffed animal.
Credit Grace Lin / NEPR
/
NEPR
Grace Lin had to search her household to unearth her daughter's long-ago-discarded, beloved stuffed animal.
One of Grace Lin's daughter's creatures made from modeling clay.
Credit Grace Lin / NEPR
/
NEPR
One of Grace Lin's daughter's creatures made from modeling clay.

So the next day, we changed things. We let go of the homeschool schedule and, most importantly, we set up an online daily book reading with her classmates.

For 15 minutes a day, my daughter's friends pop up on our computer while I read to them. 

Before I start, her classmates often share — one showing off a pet chicken, others cardboard armor or wolf masks — while she displays her latest clay sculpture. It’s easily the best part of her day.  

We Americans glorify getting things done and fixing things ourselves, which often means unrelenting individual productivity. But I’m grateful to my daughter for reminding me that it’s the connections we have with each other that are the true solution.

Grace Lin is a children's book author and illustrator who lives in western Massachusetts.

Grace Lin, a New York Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" and the Theodor Geisel Honor for "Ling and Ting." Her most recent novel, "When the Sea Turned to Silver," was a National Book Award Finalist.
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