A man with graying hair walks into his house, tired from a long day at work. He plops his briefcase by the back door, kisses his wife, pets the dog and calls his daughters to dinner. The sisters rattle the walls as they scamper downstairs, leaving behind homework that can wait until later. The house starts to liven as the youngest daughter sings a tune that has been stuck in her head that day. The older sister plays with the dog. The dad spills a cup of water all over the table and the mother smiles, taking in her crazy family.

This sounds like the opening scene from a 1970s sitcom about a witch who wiggles her nose to bake a cake or a family with six kids who cause mischief. But it’s not. It’s my family staying home while the coronavirus spreads across the globe. This is a story of a very soon-to-be graduate who is trying to feel grateful, but sometimes can’t fight a storm in her head that tells her she’s been slighted.

As a senior in my final semester at Syracuse University, my life right now is about as far from what I ever dreamed it would be. Before the pandemic, I had accepted that the last time I’d be living with my older sister and our parents in my childhood home smack in the middle of Dallas was nearly a decade ago when Caroline graduated from high school and went to college.

Then in March COVID-19 began taking hold of all edges of the country, and I retreated home from a wintery life I had gotten used to for more than three years. My refuge is a familiar place that I had grown accustomed to only seeing with a cooked turkey on the table or Christmas wreaths in the yard. My parents’ house.

(From left to right) Carla, Catherine, Caroline and Jonathan Leffert in 2017 on a family trip to Washington, D.C., where Caroline lived for four years. Courtesy of Catherine Leffert

People are losing their jobs, burying loved ones, living in fear and trying to make it through this everything-is-uncertain-what-the-hell-do-I-do world. My struggles seem cushy in comparison. I’m living in the same flower-wallpapered bedroom I moved into when I was only three months old. While I’m often thankful I don’t have to pay to wash my clothes in the grungy basement of my university apartment anymore, I’m simultaneously frustrated to have time to fold laundry in the middle of the afternoon, when I would usually be studying with my friends or putting together the next edition of The Daily Orange.

Since my first year on campus, I saw pictures of graduates popping champagne in front of the Hall of Languages and spending afternoons of senior spring on the Quad. And I was excited for them! It was energizing to see people who had been in my place three years prior and were going off to start new chapters of their life. Instead of energized, these days I find myself lethargic from nothing, hanging up one Zoom call and waiting for the next, with little to do between them as each day blends into another.

At the same time, I have the people who love me most in the world a whisper away. My mother makes dinner every night and my dad dances goofily in the living room while asking me questions about technology in the evenings (yes, at the same time). My sister, a graduate student working to figure out classes herself, will grab me a drink if she’s getting one for herself, or share memes on her phone while we’re both unwinding on the couch.

Oftentimes, I end up thinking about how lucky I am to have this team of Lefferts, all working through their own coronavirus-related struggles, who devote time and energy to help me. Then I get a ping on my phone. It’s an email from the career development center, which reminds me  that after a summer internship (which I will now be completing remotely instead of in New York City), I’ll need a job. A job that seems ever more difficult to bag, when I scroll through Twitter each day and read about layoffs, furloughs and uncertainty.

Leffert’s family threw a surprise graduation celebration for her at their home in Dallas because on-campus graduation ceremonies were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtesy of Catherine Leffert

Grateful, and slighted. Content, yet annoyed. Comfortable, but prickled.

So goes the life of a graduating senior this year. The storm hangs low and present in my headspace, leaving less room for thoughts of graduation celebrations or delusions of summer vacation plans. 

I take comfort in knowing I’m in good company of those whose lives were completely uprooted. Solace finds me in the forms of texts with friends, emails from mentors and calls from extended family.

Through eight weeks of living at home, I’ve learned how to weather the storm. Some days are easier than others, but each day that passes I don’t have to try as hard to feel thankful. 

And each day, a little four-person family and their dog sit at dinner and try to enjoy each other’s company — something they haven’t had for this long in a decade. A dad shares a story about his work (now operating via Zoom) that day, an older sister talks about what she’s learning in school, a mom shares some tidbit she saw on the local news. The youngest daughter makes silly faces at her dad across the table, laughs with her sister, smiles when her mom offers another piece of bread and feels thankful for what she has.

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Catherine Leffert was managing editor of The Daily Orange for the 2019-20 academic year.

Published on May 10, 2020 at 5:16 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert