Not the End Times, but the In-Between Times

Shifting out of the pandemic presents us with choices about redefining our relationships

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake
birds and snakes, and aeroplanes
And Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
It’s the End of the World As We Know It, R.E.M.

My maternal grandmother, Virginia, was born in 1908 in Granby, Missouri — the second youngest of 10 children. When she and my grandfather got engaged in the early 1930s, they postponed their wedding and remained engaged for three years, awaiting some hope for the end of the Great Depression, some return to stability and predictability.

My Gran died in 2004, when she was almost 95 and I was 31 years old. As a young adult, I had moved back home to St. Louis (where she lived)to get my Masters in Social Work. I felt lucky that we got to spend more time together than ever before. Easy, everyday sorts of times — chicken salad for lunch, pushing her in her wheelchair out to the flower gardens of Friendship Village, the retirement community where she lived.

I was able to observe how the Depression still impacted some of her actions and thoughts — wrapping dinner rolls in paper napkins and surreptitiously tucking them in her purse…