I was being a great “social distancing” uncle with my nieces’ two kids, ages five and eight. I guess technically I am a grand uncle but they call me “Uncle Ray”, which makes me feel younger. I had set up the sprinkler and the backyard so they could run through it and I even joined them. I was acting just as silly as them, maybe even sillier since I am sixty years old. Now that I think about it, one of my best skills is being silly with kids. It is not a skill that earns you much, or any money for that matter, but it does earn you the friendship of a youngster. It also earns you the appreciation of their parents for giving them a brief respite from watching their children.
Through all this, we maintained our social distance since
they were visiting us for the first time since the quarantine restrictions were
slowly being lifted.
They had come from Brooklyn so they were enjoying the freedom of a backyard. As we sat around with my niece and her kids, I could sense that the kids were getting a little restless. I suggested that we explore the forest at the end of our street. It is about twelve acres of undeveloped land completely full of mature trees. I figured that in a forest there is always something to see. Besides, the walk may tire them out.
When I first moved into our home, I used to walk into this woods often, as did my kids. There was a path that you could follow almost the entire length of the lot. It however has been years since we had trudged it, and apparently, no one else had, because it was not there. “No matter” I thought, we can bush whack it. Soon my nephew was finding that this wooded lot was really a playground. He lead us up as we scaled a mountain, climbed on top of a rock, found a tree which was bent over and was obviously a monkey bar. His imagination was in high gear when he decided we should build a fort. So we found a spot that we could begin to lay branches across for our fort.
While my nephew was excited and comfortable in his new playground, my niece however was not as comfortable. Her basic reaction was to follow her brother’s lead. As we were building the fort, she all of a sudden said, “I’m scared, can we go back?” I did not want to make this a traumatic moment for her so I said (to her brother’s chagrin) “let’s go.”
As we started to head back, she reiterated that she was scared. She scampered to get close to me, which made me nervous. I had been very careful about maintaining our social distancing. She reiterated it one more time, “I’m scared”. I tried to reassure her by talking with her, but she would have none of it. She then lifted her small hand up for mine. It was wrong to take her hand because of COVID-19, but I took it anyway. That simple act calmed her down. In fact, calmed her down in a way that the spoken word could not. I however, had pangs of guilt of what I was doing was wrong.
I held her hand for a short time because she was still a bit nervous. Mainly because she could not always see her older brother as he raced ahead of us galloping through the forest. Once we got within sight of the houses, I released her hand. I felt I had risked too much.
This is one of the malicious aspects about COVID-19 and the social distancing that accompanies it. It takes simple acts of kindness and love and makes them taboo. There are times (such as I had with my niece) when words are not as effective as the gentle kind touch at the right time. Like at a funeral when words are hard to come by, a caring hug from a friend sends the exact right message. This has been true for eons – that is until now.
I work in the field of education and I thought of all those teachers of students in kindergarten thru third grade. Those teachers need to show kindness and compassion with a simple touch, but that can’t happen. They are by nature affectionate people and we have taken a significant educational tool away from them.
That night I thought about the conflict raging in my head about holding her hand. I realized that was the first time I had touched another person, besides my wife and my son in over three months. I have to say I have missed the touch of another human. I have seen my mother, sister, daughter, and brother, and all I wanted to do was give everyone a hug and a kiss. Even when I saw someone at work I wanted to greet them with a hug because we had not seen each other in so long, and we had all been through so much.
Sometimes I think we don’t realize how much we are losing as a society with all of us social distancing. We can connect with Zoom, but it can’t replace a hug. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for violating social distancing policies because it is one of the only tools we have in battling COVID-19. It is just that effects of COVID-19 cannot just be measured by medical statistics. The social emotional toll is maybe the one that will last the longest.
Many of us want to go back to a normal life or more likely even find a “new normal”. How will we know we are there? For me I know. It is when a young child reaches out for your hand out of fear and you can take it and know that it is right.
