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FALL IS STILL FALL
By: Justin P. McCarthy | October 18, 2021
“Dear 6th Grade Parents/Guardians:
The health and safety of our students and staff is our top priority. This letter is to inform you that a student or staff member in your child’s classroom has tested positive for COVID-19.”
Right. Happy second day of school to you, too, Mr. beleaguered middle school principal! Another hurdle, taken in something close to stride.
Team McCarthy® had survived a spring and the better part of a summer eating only takeout and things that could be cooked in a toaster oven as we renovated our kitchen. We had stayed vigilant, kept our guard up, done our level best to follow the bewildering accumulation of not-always-congruent SARS-CoV-2 guidance volleyed our way from every level of federal, state, county, town, school district, workplace, restaurant, grocery store, athletic league and swim club bureaucracy.
The kids had grinned and borne it through a school year and-a-half of the pandemic’s untiring oppression. Sure, the delta variant was surging, with lambda and mu not far behind but our family had found a steady rhythm and Katie and I were determined that this school year would be different. We would still be careful, but we would live, too.
We’d sourced new interchangeable (Jack), fashionable (Ali) and quirkily science-themed (Claire) clothes for the kids. We’d gotten them fresh notebooks and writing tools, and topped up the shared art supplies at home. The girls were signed up for soccer—with actual games!—and Jack was back in the Practical Martial Arts dojo. We had started meeting friends for hikes and dinners outside.
And then, on day two, a terse letter from Jack’s new school announcing he had been a “close contact” of a student confirmed to have COVID-19. The sixth graders, mostly under 12, were largely unvaccinated. Six of them had brought the virus to school. One had been seated next to Jack in a class—Jack in one of his indistinguishable black-striped shirts, his new Trapper Keeper open in front of him.
We followed the rules of our son’s modified quarantine for more than a week, keeping him home except for his time at school, pausing martial arts, missing the start of Boy Scouts, canceling play dates. He took it well enough, the rougher edges of his anxiety showing in a few more fights than usual with his sisters.
With his quarantine ended, his tests all negative, the outbreak contained to six students, Jack was optimistic: “I guess this is how it’s going to be. Fall is still fall, though.”
Our family had been ready for fall, despite the pandemic--ready for soccer and Scouts and football and seeing friends again, yet the virus had been there, too, a wolf on the trail. We had locked eyes with it, kept our heads down, backed away.
It’s not going anywhere, but neither are we. Fall is still fall.
Justin P. McCarthy lives in Tiburon with his wife, Katie, and their three children--Jack, Ali, and Claire. He’d be delighted to hear from you at jpm.smmc@gmail.com.
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Don't Panic About Ants Read >>