The house was very simple. It didn’t come with any appliances, and we really didn’t have the money to buy new appliances. It also didn’t have air conditioning, but the landlord let us use an old window unit. We had a 13 inch black and white television (with rabbit ears) that we didn’t use. The water heater was small, so Sue and I showered together to have enough warm water. We, just the two of us, loved that rented house on the side of the mountain.

I was sitting in the front seat between my parents in our 48 Chevy. My sister was asleep in the back seat. We were on our way to my grandparents’ farm in Kentucky. It was dark, and I had been sleeping with my mother’s left arm around me.

I stepped out onto what had been my parents’ back porch. Two weeks earlier my Dad had breathed his last in the room behind me. Twenty-seven months earlier my mother had breathed her last in the same room. Both died surrounded by their children, and both are now in Heaven.

My sister recorded some of our father’s prayers before he died. As I listened, it was not what he prayed that caught my attention but how he prayed. He prayed with passion. He knew the end was coming. At one point he mentioned a bright light.

The ripples of COVID-19 will continue long after the quarantine has ended. Some of those ripples may surprise us with a silver lining. Those who have been dedicated to getting more and more, may, after weeks and months of social isolation, realize that less can be more satisfying, as we find freedom from our self-imposed shackles!