COMMUNITY
UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS
The pandemic hasn’t been an easy time for most of us. What has been an unexpected blessing that has come out of it?
Being able to spend extra precious time with my kids and get mid-day hugs! —Lori Gomes, RSGC parent
May 2020: Lockdown was two months old and we were adjusting to consistent family dinners—a novel luxury—and the lack of social lives for our teenage sons. One night, Seb needed a break from his final push on his Grade 11 end-of-year assignments. He asked to head out after dinner to practice driving. He had earned his G1 licence prior to the pandemic and wanted to practice parallel parking, while waiting for G2 driving tests to resume. While I was saddened for him that a study break was a car ride with his mom instead of a trip to Tom’s Dairy Freeze with his friends, we buckled in and he started driving down an eerily empty Bloor Street. Seb chose the playlist: Drake, Chance the Rapper, Pop Smoke and then it became 100 per cent Tragically Hip. It was a warm spring evening and we felt somewhat liberated from the lockdown, as the windows were rolled down. Then, the opening riffs of “Bobcaygeon” spilled from speakers across the open windows and onto Bloor. As Seb drove, we sang aloud, discussing the poetry and the history of Gord’s references in the music, including the 1933 race riots as we drove past Christie Pits. As Seb pulled into the driveway, the constellations appeared, the pandemic and lockdown forgotten. Ten months later, the lockdown continues, yet music and poetry continue to keep us connected and hopeful. — Karen Atkinson, RSGC Parent
I’ve realized that COVID sucks in a lot of ways, but that in a lot of ways, it doesn’t. Many people are getting sick and it’s amazing to see other people go above and beyond to care for them. We can’t see each other’s smiles under our masks, but we’re also making eye contact more than ever. Us introverts, we realized that we need other people, and the extroverts among us have a greater sense of self. Personally, I was suddenly unemployed, but then again, I had a summer off to hang with my teenage sons. I was able to see that living well doesn’t necessarily correlate to financial security. In fact, the things that most fulfill me have nothing to do with money. They have everything to do with connecting with nature. Connecting with myself. Connecting with others. — Heidi Philip, RSGC parent
I’m so grateful that I have a job, and I’m grateful for life in general. —Toni Nosworthy, Admissions Associate
My children have learned how to entertain themselves and have become far more creative with their playtime than they ever were before. It makes me realize that their lives were likely over-programmed and, ‘post- COVID’, it wouldn’t hurt to have more downtime. We’ll see how that goes! —An RSGC employee
Blessed to have the Rouge Park in my Stouffville backyard. Nice long hikes in silence overlooking the Toronto skyline! —Michelle Bader, Senior School teacher
My RSGC stand-up comedy club went online and moved to Wednesday evenings at 7:00 pm. We had a hard time meeting after classes without one of us having a scheduling conflict, but the boys who signed up are really into it, so it was important to us to find a time to make it work. This is always the highlight of my week, and I don’t want to go back! Having it outside of regular school hours makes it seem more like it’s just a group of random people with an interest in comedy getting together, being themselves and having some great laughs. It’s better than anything I’d be watching on Netflix! I think taking a few hours between school and the club, and having dinner first, just puts everyone in a great place to be creative and workshop their ideas. — Leanne Mladen, Senior School Art Teacher
For me, the biggest blessing from the pandemic has been the liberation and divergence from what I “should be doing” as an MBA and young business professional. Even before attending the Rotman School of Management, my aspiration was always to be an executive in the National Hockey League (side note: in my graduating year, I told Brian Burke that I was going to take his job right in front of the chapel entrance!), but I got caught up in the pre-COVID rhetoric and ended up in the rat race at a Bay Street consulting firm. It took more than seven months of lockdown for me to come to the realization that I would never be happy running my life by someone else’s rules. As luck would have it, a week after leaving the Ivory Tower, I was back in the rink working for a dream organization, Hockey Canada. Now, instead of building spreadsheets and talking in corporate gibberish, through the Hockey Canada Foundation’s Assist Fund, I get to remove financial barriers for families in need from coast-to-coast, and ultimately grow the game that we all love! —Tristan Bogler ’10
Listening in to my daughter’s university Art History lectures—so enriching. Prompted me to re-enrol in university; we’ll see if another degree materializes or not! —Clare Samworth, RSGC parent
The largest blessing from the pandemic, I strongly believe, is time. Time and space for introspection, for a stocktaking of one’s life. There was a bit of a cultural narrative about how we were all rushing around, without the time that our parents or grandparents might have had to try out new things, get into new hobbies, pursue personal interests. The year 2020-21 has given us all the time in the world to do that. It feels, in many ways, like the summer vacations we had as schoolboys—for good AND for ill. —Ben Sharma ’99
I’ve found that with the lack of social connection, I’ve made more of an effort to connect with friends and family all over the world. I’ve had many Zoom calls, Google Meets and joint Facetime chats with my sisters and father, who live in three different states in the U.S. We never did that in a pre-pandemic world, despite all living in different cities. No doubt, it’s something we’ll continue whenever things get back to something that resembles normal life. —Lauren Alpern, Shield Editor