ONE year ago today ...

Mar 12

Our world 🌎 was on the brink of shutting down, we just didn’t know.

On Thursday, March 12th 2020—when this photo was snapped at Cafe Rio, I had NO IDEA what the weekend would bring. We definitely knew of the virus, Covid-19 we had been reading and watching the news. We also understood the concept of a pandemic—we thought—but not really! We had zero personal understanding of the disrupt lurking on the next page of our weekly planners.

ONE year ago today. We enjoyed dinner in a packed Cafe Rio with our friends, The Walters. Tonight, we’re going back to take a 2021 version of this photo—all masked up and holding our take-out bags.

Here’s the STORY: Taft was mid term in his freshman year at Brigham Young University. He flew home on March 12th for a long weekend so that he could get needed dental work done for his mission application. The next day (Friday, the 13th) while he was in the dentist’s chair, he got word that BYU was canceling on campus education.

What?!

As we walked to the car, I called my husband, “BYU just cancelled classes” I said.
Without missing a beat and as if we were in a one-upping contest. Geoff replied, “Church was just cancelled”

That’s when I knew this was serious.

By Friday evening the toilet paper and baking aisles at my local grocery stores were empty—I took the kids just to SEE if what I had heard was true. Indeed! Instead of driving to the airport Sunday evening to put Taft on a airplane back to BYU, we got up early Tuesday morning and drove the 764 miles to Provo. We moved Taft out of his dorm on the same day that a whole new experience in online school was born.

LOOK 👀 back at your camera roll today. What pictures did you take on March 12th? 13th? 15th? 21st? Could you take a similar photo today or in the coming week?

We ALL have the opportunity to document this 2020 and pandemic experience and while we may have collectively experienced similar emotions (dismay, shock, confusion, fear, distrust, anxiety, duty, compassion, gratitude, relief, boredom, exhaustion—the list goes on) none of us experienced this 2020 and pandemic experience in the same way.

Each of our perspectives are important to our collective story.

What does your camera show you from March 2020? Select 2 or 3 images that you can “take again” now—ONE YEAR later. — What does your camera show you from March 2020?
Select 2 or 3 images that you can “take again” now—ONE YEAR later.

I’ll post my ONE YEAR LATER Cafe Rio picture here and on Instagram. If you do something similar, I want to SEE so be sure to tag me @stacyjulian AND I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts about how you are choosing to recognize, remember and record what you’ve experienced over the last year.