Empty Storefronts
How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. Lamentations 1:1
This morning I walked through English Village in Mountain Brook, Alabama, just outside of Birmingham, counting empty storefronts. Along a stretch of sidewalk where the buildings are picturesque recreations of Tudor English cottages, three in a row were empty. Of the two with windows still displaying signs detailing Jefferson County COVID-19 face covering requirements, and the now ubiquitous “30-70% Off” advertisements, only one is truly open. The handwritten sign, in black marker, in the other storefront is at first innocuous: “Closed until 23-26 August”. But then I notice the smaller one posted in the next window: “Big sale coming”. And its neighbor: “Thank you for your business”. By the time I’m back in Birmingham, this one, too, will be closed. And I suspect the entire block will be transformed into gapingly empty storefronts, silent echoes of the dreams of so many small business owners whose livelihoods succumbed to the virus.
We’ve lost so much, are losing so much. How long will it take to truly count the cost? Not just in lives and dollars, but in dreams walked away from, in hopes left behind. Big things. Small things. Aspects of one family’s life that can seem, to an outsider, mundane and somewhat trivial are, to the people inhabiting that life, threads of shared memories that weave future connectedness with their recollection and retelling: a much awaited vacation, a sports season filled with triumphs and disappointments, the stepping stones of a senior year in high school that were so predictable they became clichés — the last homecoming, senior night, prom. For others, college move-in days now postponed or transformed into weeks of careful pre-arrival planning, testing, and uncertainty layered on the already fraught experience of launching a child into the next stage of life. And on top of millions of heartbreaking small losses is the generation-altering weight of shuttered windows and doors permanently closed.
It’s Day #155 of the pandemic at our house. And while we’ve moved through the summer months treasuring moments when we could finally see family and a few friends, after careful risk-benefit calculations and mutual consent, deep in one of the rooms of my heart I am still grieving. Or, more truthfully, alternating between grief and denial; there is nothing sequential about the process of trying to align my expectations with current reality while hoping to evolve, someday, perhaps, if I’m lucky, into the grace of acceptance. But not quite yet. On this day, I’m still in the first chapter of Lamentations, chronicling the changed world with half of my heart leaning toward making the best of the unexpected and shifting circumstances around us, while the other half persists in a mutinous, magical belief that the sheer desire for things to go back to the way they were will propel us into a different time and space.
Stubbornness runs in my family and it’s never been a secret that I inherited the gene. If mountains could be moved based on sheer will and ingenuity, my family would have shifted tectonic plates. That fierce determination carried them through generations of farming, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and into our modern era by setting out on their own and building not only stable, but prosperous futures out of almost nothing. We certainly benefitted from the privilege of being White, and are so far removed from our immigrant ancestors who left Europe for America that their names are mostly forgotten. But my ancestors were not at the top of the economic or educational pyramid of advantage. My grandparents, great-grandparents, and generations before them, based on stories passed down and observations of our own shared history, were smart and scrappy and determined to build better futures for their children. My parent’s generation was the first to go to college, and my cousins and I are the fruits of over a hundred years of sweat equity. We all had the benefit of higher education, of parents with the financial resources to support us as we wound our way into adulthood, and of an extended family who wrapped us in love and support even when they didn’t understand or necessarily approve of our individual decisions. Stubbornness has taken us far, and I feel it rising inside of me now, aching to lash out against this newest obstacle in our lives and refute it with the sheer power of will. Like all double-edged swords, however, there is a price to wielding that power. Dreams of alternate futures come at the sacrifice of the present. And while I’m grateful for the heritage of steely determination that turned many obstacles into doorways in my life, I also long to counterbalance that strength with the grace of acceptance.
It’s often my teenage children who bring me back to the present and demonstrate through their own words and actions what living in the moment looks like. Funny how they are now modeling the behavior I seek to cultivate through meditation, prayer, and a litany of daily mantras intended to focus my distracted mind on the time and space in front of me. On the now that is, in truth, all we ever possess. (As I write this, I can hear them laughingly say “You’re trying too hard!” Or, more accurately in teenage lingo, “Mother, don’t be such a try-hard!”) The wisdom of my children reminds me that my span of influence, never mind span of control, is limited. For all of my stubbornness, determination, problem-solving ability, and refusal to give up, the only thing I can really do in response to continuing crisis and uncertainty is care for my family and home, show up at work each day to give my best effort, take actions to keep my family healthy, and try not to increase another person’s risk or burden through thoughtless or selfish decisions. I can, as my sons are doing admirably, accept the things I cannot change, find the courage to change the things I can, and strive for the wisdom to know the difference (yes, there will be more vegetables interspersed between cereal and ice cream this fall!).
The pandemic has provided moments of unexpected slow-time, unhurried days with my children when only six months ago my anxiety was focused on how quickly time was passing and how soon they will be grown up and leaving. Leaning into and cherishing that extra time is well within my span of control. The blessing and privilege of time to explore hobbies and dreams in a new way is also not to be overshadowed by frustration and complaints about the things we are unable to do. And I can acknowledge, with deep gratitude, that the grit and stubbornness of generations led me to this place where my family has everything we need to persist and persevere our way into next year and whatever it will bring to our lives.
I am also grateful for humanity’s personal narratives documenting both the inexplicable joy and unbearable sorrow of being alive as preserved in the sacred texts of our religions. They give context to the suffering of this particular arc in universal history. We each celebrate and mourn in our own unique ways, experiencing life as a series of singular moments that have the mysterious power to both make time stand still, as if nothing else in the universe existed, and speed by so quickly that we doubt our own relevance. The narratives of previous generations pull us out of that singularity and remind us that for all of the differences across time and culture, certainty and being human have rarely, if ever, co-existed.
I’ve been turning, recently, to the sacred writings of my own tradition for reminders that grief and lament, as much as joy and persistence, are part of the human experience. And that change is fundamental to everything around us. Just like sand sifting through my fingers on the beach, the moments I cherish are no more enduring than the circumstances I pray will pass quickly. Lately grief has manifested as an angel of lamentation alighting softly on my shoulder, whispering in my ear that it is necessary to name our losses and to mourn them, that wails and cries, even if only in the interior of my mind, are part of what make me human. And that crying, grieving, and railing against disappointment is as important as laughing, singing, and rejoicing when we are surrounded by good-fortune. So today I am both grieving and singing, leaning into this unexpected moment with the stubbornness I inherited and the grace to accept this present, ever changing, moment that I’m learning along the way. My mantra as we move ever closer to the fall, a strange new school year, and everything the second half of 2020 will bring to our national and global community, is reflected in the words of St. Theresa of Avila:
Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee All things are passing; God never changeth; Patient endurance Attaineth to all things; Who God possesseth. In nothing is wanting; God alone sufficeth. —H.W. Longfellow (translator)
May you, also, find a measure of stubbornness and acceptance to make the best of these times, and voices along the way to nurture your spirit. This, too, shall pass, my friends.
