You don’t have to look far these days to see how connection, action, and emotion thread through our daily lives in the Time of Covid, and how these same impulses shape our work.
In the span of 24 hours this past weekend, my life at home tapped on three essential things our organizations -- and families -- need from us right now. Neuroleadership expert Dr. David Rock’s message, which my teammate Debra shared with us after a webinar she attended, are simple and sensible. To lead through adversity, you must:
Take care of yourself
Look after each other
Deliver what matters
Thea was a baby when Floricane was born. She turned 12 this past weekend. And what a weekend it was.
Her last day of being 11 was more involved than we could have expected. Jack woke Friday with an inflamed eye, so we juggled schedules to get him –- homemade Pokémon mask in place -- to the pediatrician. Diagnosis: unclear. Instructions: keep Dr. Smith updated, as needed.
The evening brought a quiet stream of visitors – a card here, a vase of flowers there, a wrapped package. Some snuck in and out unseen. A few lingered, physically distant but socially present, as we reconnected – Thea with her friends under the magnolia, parents on the sidewalk. It was nice, this slow distant mode of reconnecting.
Jack’s eye became increasingly swollen and painful as the evening wore on -– Nikole was up with him for several hours around midnight, and I snuggled him with a warm compress as we half-watched cartoons from 4:45 in the morning until sunrise.
Thea woke, we sang happy birthday to her, and I sent our pediatrician a quick message about Jack. Before I could start my first cup of coffee, Dr. Smith texted back, “Go to the ER right now.”
There was more to her message, but the gist was, “Move.”
We all know that everything feels bigger these days, but I literally felt sick as Nikole and I quickly strategized who was going to take him. Jack insisted that Thea open a birthday present before we left, and then we bolted -- a new, fairly irrational fear of walking into a hospital churning in my gut.
Long story short, St. Mary's pediatric ER staff was fantastic. The hospital doctor and our pediatrician compared notes and Jack was released. (And he's fine now.) We were home 45 minutes after we left. Thea was curled on the couch with her new birthday iPhone.
Later that morning, I called my mom and found myself unexpectedly sobbing on the phone. (Who knew that six weeks of surfing the waves of a global pandemic would lead me to internalize all of my fears and anxieties? BTW, I'm fine now, too.)
Our family quickly regained our birthday celebration stride. Thea’s lemon-raspberry cake, baked by a friend of Nikole’s, arrived. More friends swung by with cards, and banana bread, books, and notes. We lit candles, and sang an officlal Happy Birthday song. We hopped in the car and safely delivered slices of cake to a few of her friends in the neighborhood. One of her grandmothers dropped by and chatted in the front yard. And then our 12-year-old girl hopped on her bike to go socially distant trail riding with two friends in Bryan Park.
Delivering what matters this past weekend involved connection, action and emotion. It meant shifting gears from anxiety to celebration.
Looking after each other this past weekend was more about the actions, and connection, and emotions of others. The nurses and doctors, our neighbors and friends, invested in small ways to the experience of our children (and our family).
Take care of myself? I'm working on that one. (I had a socially distant yard beer with a friend last week! It's a start.)