The green room
I have experienced several moments of quiet desperation during the past few months. As an anxious pregnant woman expecting her first child, I tried to stay sane amid the country’s initial shutdown due to COVID-19. I watched every Friends episode ever made, took my border collie on a lot of walks and worked from home sitting on the couch, but the sadness and loneliness still were overwhelming. After journaling all the feelings, praying until I cried and then crying until I prayed, I found a way to escape the madness that was sending me and everyone I knew into a frenzy. I would retreat to the far corners of our home, close my eyes, sit in silence and reach deep into family memories stored in the back of my mind.
It’s a type of meditation or step back in time where for a few seconds I can return to comforting moments of my past. The middle bedroom in grandpa and grandma Cooper’s 100-year-old farmhouse didn’t have any overhead lighting. A small fixture plugged into a wall outlet and the one window that looked west out to a field where grandpa harvested wheat every year were the only sources of light in the room. The walls were a faded blue and the carpet was a vintage green sculptured pattern from the 70s—the green room. Grandma kept some of her clothes in the closet and all of her jewelry was stored in a big white fake leather box that sat on top of the dresser. When grandkids stayed overnight, they slept in the full-size bed attached to a worn-out headboard with sliding storage panels. After bath time and a few minutes of late-night TV on PBS, grandma ushered me to bed. I’d crawl under the cool covers and stare at the blush pink nightlight plugged into the wall. The space smelled musty but clean. She knelt down next to my pillow in her faded night gown and removed her glasses. There was a permanent indentation across the top bridge of her nose from decades of wearing spectacles. I wish I could more accurately describe her voice as she began to pray, but it’s difficult to explain a sound so soft, tender and pure.
Grandma prayed for the farm, the crops, the animals, my parents, my sister. She thanked God for watching over me, and she asked for my protection. Anything I was scared of or worried about was mentioned in her nightly talk with God, and I felt safe and secure. Her sentences were long, the words precise but her rhythmic voice was a low whisper as if she was praying in her sleep. I’ve never slept as soundly as I did in that bedroom on those special nights when we would stay with grandma and grandpa. Even as a teenager, I drifted into slumber listening to grandma’s kind words of reassurance and faith. It’s a moment of security I revisited often during my dark hours as an anxiety-ridden, hormonal pregnant person.
Four months into the coronavirus craziness, it was time to bring our little guy into this strange world, and despite all of the mandated masks, severe bouts of isolation and precautionary COVID tests leading up to his arrival, the birth of our son was quite normal. We lived in a sterilized bubble of friendly nurses and newborn snuggles during our hospital stay, but back home a couple of weeks later, my sleep deprived mind and raw heart were no match for the uncertainty of the world and unexpected life events thrown my way.
While COVID raged on and my baby cried in the next room, I sat on a video call one Friday afternoon where I was told I no longer had a job. My maternity leave had abruptly come to an end because my position had been terminated. My eyes stung with tears as I sat down my phone and stared blindly at the wall. It was such a shock. Money, health insurance, a baby. All of the worrisome thoughts flashed in my head and my heart raced. I felt the panic creep up my spine, but my son was screaming, he needed me. I stepped into the next room to pick him up and rock away his tears. He cried. I cried. I hugged him and held onto his little body with everything I had. I’d never felt so alone knowing that losing my job not only affected me but also my child. After a few minutes his sobs grew quieter until he fell asleep on my shoulder. He dozed soundly with his hand brushing against my arm. I continued to rock him and felt his warm breath against my cheek. I had stopped crying too, not from sleep but because I was already years away, laying in the green room listening to grandma pray.
