There are certain moments a parent never forgets.
Last Sunday afternoon was one of those for me. I had a decision to make. It was 1:15 p.m. and Beckett and I were sitting in my truck watching the Ravens game on my phone with rain flooding the ground all around us.
Beckett, 12, never said anything about the weather. It was certainly on his mind as he watched the rain pour on the ride to his soccer game. When it was time to get out of the vehicle for the game, he seemed surprised when I didn’t join him immediately. “You good?,” he asked. He really wanted to know if I was coming out with him. I told him I was going to wait until the game started. He turned his head as a confused dog would and murmured something about me being “lucky.”
I advised a good route to the field to avoid the standing water. Then he hopped down out of the truck directly into a puddle. “Too late,” he said as he ran through standing water all the way to his field.
It was quite clear to everyone this game should have been cancelled hours ago. As one parent said during a period of heavy wind and rain, maybe this is a test of love and commitment to our kids. One dad jokingly said, “well then it’s clear I love my kid more than his mom because she’s not here.” As I laughed, my umbrella blew inside out, marking the end of its days as an effective shield from the rain.
The game was a mess. It was cold, wet and windy. Everyone who was out in the mess had frozen feet and the field became so immersed with standing the water the ball was no longer rolling 10 minutes into the game. Visibility was low, and there were some tears on the field. The conditions were getting worse. It was absurd and unsafe.
At halftime the refs huddled with the coaches and decided to end the game finally. As luck would have it, the skies began to clear on our drive home. At that point, Beckett and I were soaked. He jumped in a hot shower and I dried off to watch the rest of the Ravens-Steelers game.
As if the conditions were not enough to make it a memorable afternoon, my phone no longer holds a charge due to the rain. I learned that day the little cover over the phone’s charging hole is important in a monsoon.
It seems appropriate Halloween 2020 was unlike any other.
Halloween in Berlin is a big deal. It’s been this way for a long time, but in recent years Halloween night has attracted thousands of children from all around to town for trick or treating. It’s become such a wonderful evening in Berlin because the town, the residents and businesses embrace it and often decorate their homes and get dressed up in the spirit.
Halloween was much scaled down this year. It was appropriate with concerns over the pandemic. Every household views this entire COVID-19 crisis differently. I like to think Pam and I are in between the extremes. We were not willing to lock down the house, keep our kids from trick or treating and ignore Halloween. We knew we could do it in a safe manner.
At our house this year, we decorated for the occasion. It was a nice release to focus on something fun. We also welcomed trick-or-treaters. With the town discouraging them, we knew the crowds would be much lighter than usual. We had about 100 trick-or-treaters as opposed to the typical 1,500 to 2,000 in previous years.
Being the crafty and handy one of the house, Pam created a candy shoot featuring a six-foot long PVC pipe covered in cloth. We were able to send the candy down the shoot in a safe fashion. Carson was in charge of that, while Beckett tried to scare the kids from a distance. Being 12 years old and seeing friends he knew, he wanted to go trick-or-treat to nearby homes.
This entire world is all so weird right now. There’s a constant sense of not knowing what to do including whether it’s right to let your kid trick-or-treat with neighbors. Knowing the homeowners around us, we knew they would do it safely. In fact, he reported back seeing about a half dozen candy tubes on his travels. He said more often he came across huge buckets of individually bagged candy at the end of driveways for kids to grab on their way. Nearby were the residents wishing them well on their way.
I have grown to detest the phrase, “new normal.” It tops the list of abhorred common sayings followed closely by “out of an abundance of caution.” I think everyone wants to do the right thing while also not ruining our children’s lives. They are aware they need to be cautious, but they also should not be holed up all the time either. Their lives have already been tremendously impacted. I think my kids should be playing sports, going to school and doing what kids do. On the last day of October, they should be trick or treating.
Things started to feel normal on Halloween, especially when I stopped Beckett from walking upstairs that night with a huge bag of candy close to bedtime. He said he wanted it nearby for easier access. I told him take a handful of pieces instead. He said he wanted to keep “his candy” under his bed for emergencies. It was a normal Halloween night talk. It seemed right.
