it’s strange something to say about a show set in a zombie apocalypse, but I had a stinging moment of realization in the sixth episode of Our last. It comes in a rare moment of respite, when Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his young charge, Ellie (Bella Ramsey), halted their cross-country trip in Jackson, Wyoming. Joel’s brother Tommy, who has established a mostly zombie-free life there, gives him a new pair of boots. A dam broke inside Joel.
“There are times when I suddenly feel fear and my heart stops,” he said in a shaky voice. “I can’t sleep… that’s all I do. That’s all I ever did.”
At that moment, I jumped out of the blankets on the couch and yelled, “You are Are not failure! You have Are not failure! She’s still alive!” That’s when I realized that for me, see HBOIts latest popular show has progressed beyond mere entertainment. It’s a form of catharsis to see others parenting through a deadly pandemic.
I’m pretty sure every new parent has been terrified of their child’s over-dependence. When you first hand over a newborn baby, its heavy head barely sticks to the body. How you – a fool who once had to save himself from alcohol poisoning by vomiting – were supposed to take care of a creature Whose head could fall off at any moment?
Fortunately, a lot of catastrophic scenarios simply don’t happen. The baby’s head doesn’t fall out (usually). They eat, or get hungry and then eat. Caring for a dependent becomes the norm.
When my second child turned 2 in 2019, I think I learned not to sweat the little things. I no longer agonized over which car seat to buy or whether he would sleep through the night. (Sleeping? What?) But something changes when disaster becomes a reality. It’s not just in your head. What happens when you can no longer reassure yourself, “Oh, most kids go through this and live”?
Now, three years after starting COVID-19 pandemic, the rawness of that initial fear has been overshadowed by time, reliable masks, and vaccines. It’s hard to remember that we were alone, cutting old t-shirts to cover our noses and mouths and wiping groceries with Lysol. Having young children (and a cranky old dog) makes the early days of lockdown easier and more difficult. There are still so many moments of pure joy. But when the delta peaked In August 2021, I made the painful decision to homeschool them for another 4 months until my daughter can be vaccinated.
In the long run, four months isn’t too long. But like Joel, I had a dark night in my soul when my then-first grader watched others return to our local neighborhood school, alone, from their living room window. we. “I can’t do it,” I exclaimed to my husband. “If I make a mistake, they can die.”
