It was one of those fall days that still felt like summer.   Even though the trees were a sea of orange, red and yellow it was mild for October.  I was standing in line next to my dad to buy tickets for the chair lift at Mt. Wachusett.  It was their Apple Festival and at 7 years old I could think of nothing else but getting to go on the sky ride.

We looked just like any other father and daughter standing in line but to me this was extra important.  I was getting to spend more time with my dad.  Something I feared I wouldn’t have after I watched him have three massive heart attacks in the last 4 years.  He was released from the hospital after his quadruple by pass surgery in June and I had been his keeper ever since.  I’d get up in the middle of the night to make sure he was still sleeping in bed quietly tip toeing back to my own room after.

The chair lift swung around at what to me as a kid seemed like incredible speed.  “What if I miss the seat?”  I remember asking my dad. He chuckled, “They’re not going to let that happen,” my dad said motioning to the attendant, a high school aged boy, helping another little girl around my age onto the chair lift seat in front of me.

The chair swooped us up and the attendant helped lower the safety bar in front of our laps.  It was exhilarating!  I watched the trees grow shorter and shorter as we zoomed up the mountain side.  I never knew it was possible to be taller than the trees!  I wondered if this is how tall people felt looking at the tops of everyone else’s heads when they walked by them?

Once we reached the top we dismounted the chair lift without event walking over to the viewing area.   At the lookout area my dad helped me look into metal binoculars that tilted down to reach my face.  Everything was magnified times what seemed like a million to me.  I felt like I was looking at the other side of the world.

Suddenly, the wind shifted and the sun tucked behind the clouds.  “I think we better head down,” my dad said as I stepped off the big granite rock.   I looked up at the sky to see dark gray puffy clouds taking the place of the bright blue sky.

We took our place in line as the wind blew. This time the attendant had to hold the seat as it rocked side to side in the wind.  The safety bar was lowered down.  I could see my dad breathe a visible sigh of relief.  We made it maybe two or three poles down before it started raining. Big drops of rain.  The belt system for the chair lift squeaked as it was soaked by sideways rain.

The ride came to a stop.  We were suspended at one of the highest points on the chair lift.  I turned to look behind us.  No one was in the chair lift seat.  Two rows ahead of us there was a family of three.  No one was coming up the other side of the mountain as far as I could see which caused the seats to sway in the wind.

The rain was coming down in sheets now and we thunder was rumbling in the distance.  My lightweight maroon St. Anthony’s School windbreaker was soaked against my skin.  My jeans were wet, suctioned to the seat.  I turned to my dad and started to cry.

“Oh honey,” my dad said giving me a couple of pats on the back. “What are you worried about? That you’re going to get wet?”  I laughed through my tears.  We were already both soaked the the bone.  The thunder rumbled and my smile faded.  I started to cry all over again.

“How long are we going to be stuck up here?  When are we going to be able to get down?” I asked tears rolling down my face as fast as the rain was coming down outside.

“I don’t know. As long as it takes for them to fix it.  Are you afraid of heights?” My dad asked. I shook my head. I wasn’t. I used to climb to the swing set on the playground near my elementary school when we walked there for gym class and hang off the top bar.  “Crying isn’t going to solve anything. We have to think about what we can control and what we can’t control,” my dad said as the seat swayed again.

“Nothing,” I said.  Even as a second grader I knew you couldn’t change the weather.  I looked up at my dad whose glasses were covered in rain, his ball cap plastered to his head as he laughed out loud nodding.

“Yup. Ab-so-lute-ly nothing,” he said.

After what felt like an eternity, but at 7 years old I may not have been the best judge of time, the chair lift came back to life and we made our way safely to the bottom.  That night I didn’t get up in the middle of the night and tip toe around the house to make sure my dad was still tucked in his bed. I was older, wiser after that afternoon.  He had taught me a very valuable lesson at a young age- there are some things that are completely out of our control.  Life, death, the weather….chair lift motors.

I tell you this story now because the past three weeks we’ve been hearing the words” unprecedented”, “uncertain” and”unusual” from every media outlet in the country.   We are all living through something we have never been through before.  With age comes experience, usually, the problem right now is no one has experienced life as we know it right now.  We are all little kids stuck up high on the chair lift wondering when we’ll be able to get back down.

Reassurance comes in feel good stories about small businesses stepping up to produce PPE equipment for first responders, restaurant owners donating food, or in neighbors helping others around them who may not be able to get groceries for themselves. Look around you even in the middle of the storm- there is plenty of good out there still.  In time the ride that we call life (the life we knew before the storm) will start again and we will make our way down the mountain with a different perspective and stronger than we were before.