LEMONADE

The past year was sad, lonely, challenging, frustrating, scary, even boring at times. We tried, but…..

Virtual weddings, funerals and graduations got us to the event but didn’t cut it. A couple’s long-planned trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play (performed once every 10 years) was squelched, as was another’s to Sicily. Many of us wondered if we’d ever use our passports again.

We “celebrated” lonely birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases and Passovers. We watched our grandkids miss months of school and weekend playdates. As the death rate soared to devastating heights, it was impossible to brush away the niggling fear that we too might get that damn COVID.

But there were “lemonade” moments. 

Absence made the heart grow fonder and our appreciation of family deepened. The frightening and sobering news that my brother’s family, then my sister’s, tested positive for the coronavirus last October shook me to the core. But they recovered and are healthy today. 

“Morning coffee” and “cocktail zooms” connected us with treasured pals in Canada, even in the next town. The extra time we had to scour FaceBook brought friends from years ago back into our lives. 

Imagine my joy when I received a note from Elie Sunde, my “summer sister” when I lived in Olden i Nordfjord, Norway, as an AFS exchange student in 1959. We hadn’t communicated in nearly 40 years. These days, we swap photos and write frequently. 

Food swaps replaced dinner parties. I’d open my front door and discover a container of Ralph’s famous chili. In turn, I’d cook a cauldron of haddock chowdah and drop some off at friends’ houses. In appreciation, a special guy sent us a frozen dinner of Memphis-famous Rendezvous ribs and barbecue. To die for!

My former book club in Ridgewood, New Jersey — my last meeting with them was 30 years ago — started sessions via zoom. A member emailed and suggested I join the discussion from Maine. (FYI, we called ourselves “The Winos,” and not because we sipped Pelligrino while discussing Pulitzer Prize-winning books every other Thursday afternoon.) 

For several months now, I’ve opened the zoom link to the Winos on the appointed day and there they all are: with grayer hair, many wearing glasses, some struggling to figure out how to open their zoom window, but still filled with joie de vie and keen literary insights.  

During the long quarantine, many people accomplished amazing things. There’s Annabelle, a Kennebunk eighth grader, who sewed and sold masks for a minimal price. One year later she had raised $10,000 from her mask-making which she donated to the local library, the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital and the Good Shepherd Food Bank, among others. And she’s still sewing today.

Last March a family in Atlanta opted to quarantine at their summer home in Ogunquit. The parents realized they could work via zoom and their three daughters could keep up on their school work with “distance learning.” So they drove north on I-95, accompanied by the family dog. 

When they arrived in Maine, cousins and grandparents soon  joined them. Then, last May, this family “quaran-team” donned aprons to write a cookbook — “FEEDING FAMILY, FEEDING AMERICA: Easy, Foolproof Recipes from Our Family to Yours.” (Available on Amazon.) 

And here’s the delectable dash:  each book purchased provides 100 meals to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

So I ask myself: was it only a long difficult year? Nope. Not when you can make sweet lemonade out of sour lemons.