Our first experience of a Zoom call was our niece’s wedding in May 2020, when the sting of lockdown was still raw on our hearts and just beyond the edge of our driveway’s gravely apron, a shadowy future hung its thick veil menacingly over every plan we’d made. Patrick and I sat on the couch in our pajamas eating sunny side up eggs and toast (“Can they see us? Are you sure the video is turned off?”) and watched as Maile and her father, both masked and wearing gloves, walked across the dewy grass of the family home’s back yard, past a table that held two light sabers, two Boba Fett helmets and a Star Wars-themed chocolate cake, to greet the smiling groom, Tyler, and seal the deal with friends and family watching from safe distances. On that chilly spring day, their love and regard for each other was the shared solid ground on which we all stood. We held on fast to it, and each other. Paused indefinitely were their plans for a European honeymoon and the kind of wedding reception that would bring them broad smiles in later years when they looked back on a life well-lived.

Until a couple weekends ago.

At a bar on the edge of downtown Columbus, I sat wedged in between my aunt Janie and Tyler’s grandmother, rolling succulent shreds of smoky pulled pork into a warm corn tortilla slathered with guacamole, looking expectantly at a little serving dish just inches from my plate, filled with truffles, their cocoa-dusted tops bearing the trademark finger-pinch shape. Now three years into their wedded bliss, Maile and Tyler were finally able to gather dear friends and family into one place to celebrate those grassy steps they took toward each other on that chilly day in May, insisting that love was bigger than the circumstances that had hung over us all. They were right.

On Halloween that same year, my other niece, Andi and her man, Greg, gathered us on the front lawn of that same family home and we witnessed their love made legal in the state of Ohio, where I had the honor of signing the marriage certificate with my freshly-minted ordained minister signature on the line below their names. We hoped the masks we wore were elegant and respectful for the occasion, and are eagerly awaiting the announcement for their reception, a storybook-themed affair still on the drawing board. A year later, my nephew, Rob and his beloved, Collin had the full-out in-person wedding and reception on a sunny October day, with her family in from Texas to join the festivities. Patrick and I struggled with our decision not to attend, still jittery about COVID’s surges and mutations. I have winces of regret, even knowing we did the best we could with the information and conflicted feelings we had at the time. Rob and Collin’s generosity of spirit knows no limits. They understood and understand still.

I only recently eased out of my mask-wearing practice, keeping a stash ready to hand in a wrinkled paper lunch sack in the back pocket of my purse. I never really minded them in the first place, having some immunocompromised folk around me, and in the winter, a good face covering kept my cheeks warmer. I remembered that all my hidden smiles naturally migrated to the eyes and so made sure to emphasize that in my interactions with market customers. One gathering, one public setting at a time, I grew more comfortable putting my full face out there again, grateful for the vaccines I took willingly and the virus’ inability to take hold in me, so far. That’s the least-jinxing way I can think of to phrase that. I know nothing is guaranteed, even through a hopeful veil of magical thinking. Now that the public health emergency has officially ended (May 11, 2023, if you need to put that in your diary somewhere), we’re settled into a rhythm that is part “normal”, part familiar and not looking over our shoulders as much. It’s certainly not as if COVID never happened (there are too many empty places at tables we once gathered ‘round) but we’re allowing a few more exhales—and inhales—than we did when mask mandates were first relaxed.

Back in March 2020, I wondered what we’d look like as a collective, a human community, when it was All Over. I couldn’t see that day from my perch on the ledge of our nation’s uncertainty and division in the pandemic’s early weeks-become-months. Images of Italians singing to each other across balconies still hang in the ether of my memories and I’d hung my hopes for our tribe on them, fiercely. Applause for healthcare workers’ shift changes and yard signs for their front lawns, sewing machines cranking out colorful cloth face masks and reusable isolation gowns…all bore the mark of my heart’s tight grip around their edges, holding on for all I (and humanity) was worth. And while debates may continue to rage on about where humankind has landed on the other side of May 11, 2023, I plant my tired feet solidly in the place of healing that is possible for us, and cup my hands gratefully around the faces of those who insist on love, their hopeful gaze locked onto a future we’re moving toward together, limping or leaping. It is important to honor the fact that we’re still here and there’s much to do.

A memory rises from some twenty years ago, at the end of a four-day gathering with family and dear friends, of fasting and sweats and food and ceremonies and prayer so that the people may Live. For reasons known and still wrapped in mystery, we had all been touched by the power of something Bigger in unforgettable and indelible ways. Circled around a fire that had burned constant for four sunsets and five sunrises, we were reluctant to leave. Then, in a small slice of silence after the final mitakuye oyasin was offered up to the sky, one of the little ones, five years old and curious always, shouted out an innocent and profound question as only a child can: “What do we do now!?”. Her father, an elder and old soul for his 20-some years, smiled down into her whole face and said simply, “the very best we can.”

Yep.

Ah-ho, relatives.