Dear Devon,

Well it is now June 5th, you are three months old and we are three months into living through a pandemic. It is still very difficult and people in the Northeast are a bit shell shocked from the experience but watching the rest of the country getting back to business as if nothing has happened is very scary.

Mom and Dad took you to see your other grandparents at their Jersey shore house so you are starting to get out and about. Not quite as much as you would be if life were typical right now but you certainly do not know the difference. Mom tells me you are very good in the car … which makes Grandma happy because then maybe your Mom and Dad will bring you up to visit us.

Grandma is in the midst of planning a birthday party for Grandpa and hoping that we can all be together on Cape Cod in a few weeks. Your Uncle Sam is in LA but everyone else is either in New York, New Jersey or Massachusetts. New York and New Jersey were hit very hard at first by the virus and have some restrictions in place around travel. If we could all get a reliable test before we see each other we would definitely feel safer about the visit. Yet there are still issues with getting a test and delays with getting results. Also some of the tests have a high false negative rate. So the test may tell you that you do not have the virus when indeed you do. This could be very dangerous. You could unknowingly infect other people. But at least in all three states we are wearing masks when we go out and continuing to maintain distances from people when in public spaces. Many things have been cancelled — including weddings, graduations and trips. Grandma and Grandpa cancelled their trip to Italy … it is sad but hopefully we can go next year. It is truly the least of our concerns as so many people are losing their jobs and finding it difficult to feed their families. Our government did agree on one stimulus check for people now to help them get over the tough times. But as I wrote earlier to you there has been very little coordinated government effort to stop the virus.

All in all with the nicer weather coming it does feel like we will be able to get through this crisis. Grandma can see a friend or two outside and go for a run or play pickleball. And we are back to getting errands done in person. Simon and Olive — Grandma’s dogs even went to get a haircut. That is another wild thing about the pandemic — people could not get their hair cut while the salons were closed. We had a few shaggy heads walking around. Grandpa was lucky … he has no hair anyway and Grandma just cut her own hair… pretty sure Mom did the same thing. There are so many things we take for granted that we can’t do now. It does cause one to think about the important things in life. That could be a very good thing.

I can not wait to see you again soon! That’s all for now.

Love,

Grandma