What I’ve learned in my 17 years asa parentis that experiencing the world through the lens of your child can make life so much more intense than it would be otherwise. It’s more full of love and also more full of pain. When you look at your child doing something that makes you proud, your joy inflates with the speed of an inflating helium balloon. But when you see your child suffer, your system reacts as though it is your own body that’s bleeding, or your own heart that’s broken. Somehow, in having a child, the world and its wonders and pain are all magnified, amplified, multiplied.
我的家人有一个相对特权大流行经历— no one in my home has had Covid-19, and we haven’t had the threats of food and housing insecurity that so many others have. We’ve dealt with remote school, cancelled anticipated events, and more time together than we’d ever planned, and that’s been both good and bad. This being said, we’ve seen the vaccine in the distance as a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
我很松散，很乐意说我now inoculatedagainst Covid-19. When I received each dose, as the needle went into my arm, I closed my eyes to connect completely with the moment. I quietly said theShehecheyanu— the blessing we say thanking God that we have lived to see a momentous day in our lives arrive. After a year of distance and fear, I had finally arrived at the moment of which I had dreamed: the beginning of the end.
I was a glorious moment — but it wasnothing相比我的感受,当我终于有了一个appointment for my 17-year-old son to get hisCovid-19 vaccine。After hitting refresh a gazillion times on the Walgreens app, with all the zeal of a new sleepaway camp parent clicking oncamp photo uploads, I最后got an appointment slot. I clicked on “yes” and wiped tears of gratitude from my eyes. I felt the same feelings I had when I finally got a vaccine appointment for myself — only these feelings were magnified, amplified, and multiplied.
我考虑过这些膨胀，扩大的情绪，更加扩大的情绪，因为我上周与我的17岁的儿子在前排座位旁边的17岁的儿子进入Walgreens停车场。我想到了我如何在一天中将他带入他的丑陋的蓝色和黄色汽车座椅，他的小赤脚拒绝鞋子的踢鞋，就像一个看不见的时钟的摆锤。那个小男孩现在高于更高 - 比我更高。他是我希望他的一切：善良，聪明，善意, and loving. And he believes, as I do, in science.
没有人期待全球大流行能够破坏他们的预期轨迹adolescence。我的儿子永远不会让他的女朋友去初级舞会。在大学期间期待已久的夏季计划 - 他一直期待所有高中的人 - 被取消。有这么多的时刻，大而小，已被扫除passage of timeand pandemic; they are nonexistent and irretrievable.
But, on the other hand, this year has given me the chance to truly see my son grow up, day by day, moment by moment. He has become the most focused and dedicated worker I know, devoting countless hours to his art projects and the animated movie he’s created entirely by himself, frame by frame. He has alternately been infuriated and amused by the ridiculous demands of online physical education, doing bizarre calisthenic contortions to fit between our living room furniture and the outlines of Google Meet camera boxes. He’s yelled at his younger sisters to be quiet during hisonline schooltoo many times to count (spoiler: it never works). He’s had a relationship with his girlfriend that bears more resemblance to courting in the era ofDownton Abbey（“我们要绕着附近的另一回合？”）比21世纪，涉及的耐心导致它们更深入的联系。
I feel so proud of him all the time. But this moment, which appeared ordinary from the outside — a mom and a son, masked, entering Walgreens — was a liminal one.
Fortunately, getting vaccinated is now a privilege afforded toevery American over 16。It is quite literally the moment that we’ve been waiting for, here for the taking. It is a step into the future, one where we can protect those most in need of protection, as well as ourselves. It’s an expression offaith in science，事实上过于虚构。它与社会签署了紧凑型 - 这一事实的身体承认，就像它与否，或者否认它，我们的命运都是无线可分交织的。
Iwantedmy son to get vaccinated. And there was never any question that he felt the same.
看着我的儿子接种疫苗震动了我的灵魂，从我看到他成为的方式没有那么不同酒吧米茨瓦赫in another world, four long years ago. In both moments, he took on an obligation to a community larger than just himself. In both moments, he exemplified that he had become the person I had dreamed he would become.
我对看到这种久期疫苗的疫苗接种的感激深刻，但在我面具下面涓涓细流的泪水是快乐的。一如既往，看到我的儿子经历something meaningfuL是，比我自己体验的任何感觉更大，更深入。我很感激这对他来说很重要。我很感激它终于变得可能了。
And so, as we sat beneath Walgreens’ fluorescent lights, we said the Shehecheyanu together, on our respective plastic chairs.感谢上帝，I said,让他在这一天到达。And I thanked God for allowing me to live to see it.
Header image by Natalia Smuriakova/Getty Images
