Thursday, October 15, 2020
Chris Kozak
Laugh
A horse walks into a bar and the bartend says, “Hey, what’s with the long face?” I don’t know about you, for me 2020 has felt like 4-5 years. Maybe not the best winter for winter sports, but they were occurring as expected. In February, things felt different. In my office the seasonal flu had hit and many staff were out. There was a new virus making headlines. My wife, Tracy, was preparing for a business trip to New Orleans, Seth was preparing for an honors choral event in Rochester, New York, and Nikolai was getting ready for a trip to China with the high school. By March, the novel coronavirus was a reality. Tracy had returned from New Orleans, Seth had a successful choral event and China was…well China was a big question mark.
By April our world was upside down. Nikolai and Seth were doing remote school, Tracy was working remotely, and I was figuring out how to get mental health services delivered in a remote fashion. I know each of you have your own stories related to entering our transient reality and some day we will be able to gather and share them. For now, we continue to live, learn, and hopefully laugh. Yes laugh.
These are truly unprecedented times. As such, I have found a need to balance the reality of the day with a dose, or two of humor. Part of my reality is to recognize that I loathe COVID-19 and I can’t escape it. Each day when I get to the office I have my temperature taken and need to attest to a series of question that we all know by now. I get an email with the number of children being held in local emergency rooms awaiting an acute inpatient admission for psychiatric reasons. These numbers have never been as high as they are now. I review the list of children and families seeking services. My heart sinks as I realize we cannot meet the need. I listen to the grandmother, who has been put in the position of trying to get her grandchild to participate in remote learning so her daughter could work. She is emotionally spent and crying. At noon I get on a call with my director team to review operations – have any staff tested positive? Who is not able to be today due to symptoms? Are there any clients testing positive? There was no escape. Why am I getting a text from Seth – oh wait, he’s not at school today, but doing remote learning. Trump said… Biden will… Vote for (fill in the blank).
It was becoming too much, and I needed balance. So one Friday during my noon call my brain took advantage of a “free association” thought blended with humor and the something known as a “virtual background.” Someone was talking about their team needing some oompah “oompah.” My mind quickly turned that to Oompa Loompa and a quick Google search allowed me to swap my virtual background to two Oompa Loompas. It was perfect. I could see the reaction on the faces on the screen one by one as they saw the Oompa Loompas behind me. Big smiles and laughs. My heart lifted and I felt the burden lift from my shoulders. My noon meeting turned into the balance I needed and craved. Soon others started participating in their own way. One director lives next to farm with cows and puts a picture up. We all now know more about cows than we knew there was to know.
We still have a way to go before we can put COVID-19 in the rear view mirror. But by acknowledging our anger and frustration with this reality and using a bit of humor and laughter we can all become superhero’s like me!