As I lay in the small cordoned off area of our RV, I am reminded of a pullman car on a train. There are curtains in the RV that can be pulled to close off the bedroom from the rest of the unit.

The rain is plopping down from the oak tree that we are parked under in my sister’s driveway, onto the roof. I am cozy and warm thinking thoughts of the year gone by and the way forward.

And it is almost a year to the day since the pandemic started and life changed forever. I want to remember what happened and pass it along to others that haven’t experienced what we experienced.

My husband and I started our trip to Sonoma in March 2021 after being fully vaccinated for the coronavirus. We had purchased an RV in July 2020, as a way to bug out if the need arose. I knew how important it was to get up to Sonoma and visit my mother, who is 88 years old and will be 89 in June. The past year made us all realize how time is fleeting and how we have all lost precious time during this pandemic that has killed over half a million people and counting in the United States.

The parts I will remember of the past year include moments of terror, grief and an incredible appreciation for life.

As the director of a preschool, the last days with the children and teachers ended abruptly. There was no time to wish them well or find any kind of closure.

There were so many decisions to be made at the school with little knowledge or understanding about this terrible virus and how it was spread. Did it spread through the air? What about surfaces?

Would we be back in school in two weeks or three? How long would this last? We had no idea. How would we pay the teachers with no income from the parents? There was so much to sort out.

Parents and teachers were disturbed with all of the information and misinformation. There was no way of knowing when school would return as usual. The next months were extremely upsetting and difficult as we managed our way past rumors, anxiety and fear.

When it became known that there were more cases in the local area, a decision was made to close the school until fall 2020, and aline this decision with the local school district which had also closed.

The time was used to prepare the school for the incoming children in the fall. This included protective gear, air filters, new fencing and many, many decisions.

How do we communicate with families? Of course the answer was the now infamous Zoom, an annoying, unreal and yet necessary way of communicating. The struggle was real. The lockdown meant we did not see any more of the children and families until early June, when we did a rather pathetic drive by farewell end of the year event.

This was such a fearful time, the news became more and more horrifying, with a constant video stream of suffering patients in COVID wards in Italy at first and then the United States.

I had been planning a trip with a friend for nearly a year to exotic Morocco in March 2020. We cancelled almost on the eve of departure when tales began coming through of travelers virtually trapped in Morocco, unable to return home, trying desperately to fly to a country who would let them pass through.

Friends and relatives spoke of getting the last flight out from different countries. A friend barely made it back to the US. She had been traveling the El Camino de Santiago in Spain and heard rumors of this mysterious disease coming from China and affecting the whole world. She was able to catch one of the last flights out. My brother and his girlfriend managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Portugal, not realizing travel would stop or would be severely restricted for a over a year, right after they returned home.

Panic soon set in and fear. The lockdown meant everything closed down except essential services. Essential meaning grocery stores, gas stations, drug stores, and hardware stores.

The panic included panic buying, hoarding and shortages of things like toilet paper, yes, toilet paper, don’t ask.

It became known that this disease affected mainly older people and those with immune compromised systems. At age 66 and my husband aged 72, we were prime candidates for COVID. We became very afraid. Even taking walks around the neighborhood were filled with fear and dread. Everyone was out on walks, one of few physical activities we were now allowed. Seeing people on the street meant anxious moments, crossing to the other side to avoid contact.

Even our precious beach was closed to swimming and surfing and don’t even think about sitting on the beach, not allowed. We could walk on the beach and thousands did, just to get away from the feeling that the walls were closing in. The horizon of the ocean gave us a rare feeling of relief.

For us old characters, it was a feeling of loss, lost time to travel, to see people,to do our ordinary tasks. I went to a grocery store no more than three times in nearly a year, and when I did I was filled with such anxiety and dread. Too many people, too much stress. Anyone of these people could be infected and there was nothing except a small mask between us and the air we breathed.

Was it all bad? Of course not, but with an impending election and terrible behavior by the president, there was much to be concerned about. It truly was a country in chaos.

So how did we get by? One thing was the purchase of three adorable baby chicks. Their cuteness and need for care, put us on a path and gave us a mission. Chicks need food, shelter and a warm light to grow by.

They also needed a permanent structure, so onto YouTube. Studying chicken dwellings and the need for a warm dry coop and roosting box to lay their eggs. This was not our first rodeo with chickens. We had many strange and wonderful pets over the years with Rosie the Pygmy goat being my absolute favorite.

Pets do give you a focus and they need care every day. So, bless their little hearts.

We also started a big garden, and when I say we I mean my husband, son, and his wife. It was planted with care. There were diagrams of plants and where they would go in the garden We purchased all the items and set forth on the path to independence, and it really did work out. That way we ended up having enough fruit and vegetables to supplement our groceries that I purchased online, thank God for Instacart.

It is now been five years since the beginning of the Covid outbreak. I’m not sure what we’ve learned but I have to take heart that we survived.