Have you seen the #WeRemember video from @TheSocialCoUK? If you do nothing else today… no shower, no making of the bed, no brushing of the teeth… do this one thing. Watch the video.
https://www.facebook.com/TheSocialCoUK/videos/3653942478011904/
It so perfectly lays out the beauty we will see on the other side of this crisis.
Kindness is unfolding before our very eyes. There are neighbors checking in over fences, gallons of milk being bought for those who can’t leave the house, and teddy bears peeking out of heart-filled windows.
But aside from the kindness we can see now, there are gifts that will only be revealed in hindsight.
In our home, I can feel a legacy being created.
For Team Phillips, the word legacy is usually reserved for basketball programs and outstanding coaches.
Saul is distracting his basketball brain by painting all the woodwork inside our house. We hired people to do the upstairs because we were on a House Hunters timeline, but now, with our renovation budget depleted, he’s decided to tackle the downstairs on his own.
It would be rude to sit on the couch and watch him, so I am hanging blinds and renovating a bathroom.
It occurred to me that our boys will someday own homes that will require similar projects. They were not thrilled to become my personal apprentices, but in a rare strong-arm mom move, I ignored the whining and put them to work.
Ben, age 9, was in charge of the blinds. He got to use a drill for the first time and learned that a Phillips head screwdriver was not actually named after his grandfather.
Later in the day, my 14 year old, Charlie, wrote his name in paint on the bathroom wall and then sighed as I made him roll over it with the brush.
I worked side-by-side with my kids, one at a time.
Jordan and I talked about colleges while cutting fabric for hospital masks.
Ben learned his mom sometimes cusses when she measures wrong.
Charlie entertained me by singing songs that involved the words “I hate painting.”
I know this pause in normal life is not comfortable. I know it’s challenging for each one of us in its own particular ways.
But this quarantine time is important time. The entire world is bonding over something. And our tiny little spheres are too.
As far as legacy goes, someday when my kids tell their kids about how the world stopped during the Coronavirus, I want them to fondly remember that it was also the time they worked side-by-side with their Mom and Dad. And it wasn’t all bad.
