A Form of Hope

On March 12, 2020, we were scheduled to leave at 5:30 in the morning for a 12-hour drive to Wichita, Kansas for a basketball tournament. It was, in fact, the national tournament for my daughter’s youth league; her team had worked hard all year to make the cut, to raise funds, to be prepared.

In the days leading up to the tournament, the news became increasingly ominous. The first U.S. cases of COVID-19 had been diagnosed, and transmission was occurring not just among people who had been exposed outside the country, but also among people who had traveled to areas of the country where the virus was known to be present, like hard-hit Washington State. Ohio’s governor had already begun cancelling events—although public opinion held that he was being alarmist. The tournament organizers had told us the tournament would go on, but with temperature-checks for athletes and spectators, and frequent sanitizing of the facility. The adult league was already on-site, playing their own tournament, which would overlap by a few days with the youth tournament.

On March 11, early in the morning, I decided I would make my decision. I read everything I could find about COVID-19—where it was, how it was spreading, what the public health recommendations were. There was less information, and it was less informative, than what we now know. The situation in Italy looked worrisome—but not nearly as dire as it would become less than a week later. The World Health Organization had not declared the disease a pandemic. Only some U.S. states had declared a state of emergency, and even in those places, confirmed case numbers were low. Our healthcare system was better than China’s, better than Italy’s; there was not all that much reason for Americans to be concerned.

I decided we would go. Even drawing teams from all over the country, a youth sports tournament in the middle of the continent seemed like a relatively low-risk proposition. I shut down all of my social media sources, all of my news; I cut myself off. The decision made, I did not intend to second-guess it. I packed our bags for Wichita.

That day, while I was cut off from the news, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.

That night, at 9:30 p.m., the organizers canceled the youth tournament.

My daughter cried.

We stayed home.

This week it will have been six weeks since March 11, when we were involuntarily thrust into this isolation. With very limited exceptions, we have stayed home since. We pick up groceries and prescription refills and occasional take-out meals, and carry handmade masks or homemade food from the people who make them to the people who need them. My daughters do their school work—high school and college—online, and we are thankful every day that our financial situation is largely what it already was. We are grateful that our health is largely what it was. And we try to be patient, because eventually, this too will come to an end. If we are cautious—more cautious, perhaps, than we need to be for ourselves—we will not cause harm to our neighbors through this crisis. If we are fortunate, we and our neighbors and the people we love will be here to see it end.

And every day, except when it rains, my younger daughter goes outside by herself, or maybe with me or her sister, to shoot baskets in the driveway.

It is a form of hope.

What form, in this present crisis, does hope take for you?