There was a great event at our house a
few days ago.
Thankfully, the delivery was painless.
It all started with a phone call to Reesor’s Market and Bakery here in Stouffville.
A few hours later, our daughter, Grace, came home—carrying several paper bags.
Immediately, she ripped open the bags and
tossed them into the fireplace; every vegetable and fruit was immersed in soapy water and scrubbed within an inch of its life; every package thoroughly washed.
At last—fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese and cold cuts again on our table!
I was present for the unveiling of our groceries—our first ever such pick-up during these COVID-19 times.
A month ago, would buying groceries be an event, I asked my daughter?
Would we be this thankful for the friendly staff?
Would we have admired and artfully displayed every orange and banana? Would we have tried to disinfect everything that comes into the house?
The COVID-19 crisis does that to a person.
Now we look at our food and supplies much differently from just 30 days ago.
We calculate: how long till the next groceries come in? Maybe we had better use less of that cheese each day and step up the lentil soups. There are how many apples left? Hurray, I found a whole cabbage in the fridge. Can we borrow some toilet paper, please?
The dandelions that will soon take over our lawn are looking mighty tempting. We have enough pasta and aglio e olio (garlic and oil) to make many dinners. We certainly are rich in dandelions!
In the meantime, we’re keeping up with the hand washing. We’re even keeping our distance from each other (hugs begone!) and haven’t stepped inside a store for a month. If we go out, we stay in the car, not leaving the vehicle till we’re back home; otherwise sightseeing is done in our own backyard.
Our family is thankful to our local businesses that have changed their ways of doing things. To tide us over for April, we have orders in at Longo’s and Wal-Mart and the Meat Merchant to be delivered to our door. We continue to check out other businesses.
Our hat goes off to the people working in the grocery stores, drug stores and other essential services during these scary times.
When this is all over, these employees will have a lot of stories to tell. Let’s hope we all made their work-a-day experiences more good than bad.
Things will get back to ‘normal’ eventually—a different kind of normal.
I think many of us are already treasuring what we have, and our family and friends more than ever.
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