So we’ve been at this unwanted adventure for a month. Can it be an adventure if you aren’t doing anything or going anywhere? Regardless, we are on a quest to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe. A quest to stay home? Very odd.

This week contained Easter, which my family celebrates. There is something innately surreal about celebrating a resurrection during a pandemic. Much like my Jewish friends celebrating being spared from a plague…during a plague. But the juxtaposition of new life and stalking death wasn’t lost on me.

I won’t lie, this was a tough week. We normally visit family over Easter, and not seeing them was hard on all of us. My daughter would say, “I really miss Grandma.” or “I wish I could see Grandma.” I am hoping that this virus gives us a break in the summer and we can get a visit in then.

Honestly, I would have just as soon let Easter pass with no celebration, no reminders, but I have a child who loves Easter, so thankfully, the Easter Bunny came and delivered candy and Legos, so our young one squealed with delight on Easter morning! (And woke us up quite early in the process.) My daughter left the Easter Bunny a note asking if he had been impacted by the virus, too. He left a note back saying animals don’t get sick from it like humans do, so the bunnies were fine. He also said that magical creatures seemed to be immune, as the leprechauns and elves were not sick, either.

The week was hard, with a lot of heavy feelings and held-back tears on my part. But it has passed and for the moment we are on a somewhat even keel. Tomorrow will be 14 days since I was last out in public, so I seem to have come through another incubation period okay. I got a slot for grocery pickup this time around, so I will not have to physically go into the store.

So Easter has passed, and it is hard not to try and find meaning in the conjunction of the theme of resurrection during a pandemic. The coronavirus has laid our country low, has bared all sorts of underlying inequities that have been ignored for a long time—racial, economic, health inequities that must be addressed when this is over. When we put this virus behind us, America must rise into something better than we were before—something closer to the ideals America has always proclaimed. Just as Jesus rose as something more than human, America must rise as something more than we were.