A Plea to Worry

"Are you worried?" my wife asked.

The date was Jan. 25. My wife and I were off to Hawaii in a few days with a stop for work and pleasure in our second home in Edmonton. My wife is a worrier. I am the "It'll be OK guy."

"It'll be OK, we can't live in fear," I told her.

By the time we left for Hawaii, travel to China was halted. By the time we headed home, a case showed up in Hawaii. By the time we were back in Omaha, the Diamond Princess was in the news, and the pandemic was imminent.

Chancellor Jeffrey Gold of UNMC and UNO had already been telling us about this virus. At his campus forums he spent half of it talking about the inevitable arrival of Coronavirus in Omaha and Nebraska, and the idea of going online for classes began being explored.

"Are you worried?" my boss asked via text.

The date was Feb. 29. I was still in denial. A short trip to Seattle for work from March 1-3 was the last trip planned until April or beyond. On Feb. 29, Washington's governor declared a state of emergency.

"No." I texted her back.

I was being a #COVIDIOT I guess. The conference was canceled the next day.

Since then at work, it's been a feverish sprint to move to remote teaching and learning at the University of Nebraska's campuses in Omaha, Lincoln and Kearney. The first Nebraska case hit close to home. In the same county as my wife's hometown. My son's hockey rink in Fremont shut down. School was on spring break March 5-13 thankfully. They never went back. It was real now.

Since March 16, the days and nights have been a blur. The two best parts of the workday are the daily stand up on Zoom with the amazing UNO Digital Learning team that I am lucky to be a part of, and 4:30 p.m. press conferences with Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.

In between are dozens of video conference meetings, wedged between kids' meals, laundry, dishes, and kicking a soccer ball around 2 p.m. for half an hour. Nights are late. Sometimes work. Sometimes scrolling Twitter hoping for better news.

As I write this, the 8:30 a.m. standup is coming soon in a few hours. A purpose. Lucky to have work as so many get laid off this week. It's been an exhausting three weeks, and it looks like we have many more left.

As I scrolled through social media late one night far too late, a former classmate from junior high posted her day as a nurse at a hospital in a community where the virus has hit.

"This is the day I realized that Covid-19 was right here, in a place I call home."

"Are you worried now?" you might ask.

Yes, I am. I only hope others are now, too.