By Cameron Strawhacker
During Covid I had a meaningful experience, learning the importance of friends and family. Although the COVID-19 pandemic was hard on everyone, there were some bright spots and positives that came from it- for me, this was developing a closer relationship with my brother.
Beginning from the middle of March to the end of summer I couldn’t see or hang out with any of my friends really at all. I didn’t see my extended family much either during this time. At times it got lonely and boring. However, one positive I got from it was the closer bond I formed with my brother. We were close growing up but like most brothers, we would fight and didn’t always get along the best. As we got older we continued to get along better but we also didn’t see each other as often. I hadn’t thought about it until recently but with both of us being involved in sports and different things, we didn’t see each other much when I was in middle school, and he was in high school. During covid that changed.
Being locked in our houses for months we saw each other every day, we spent hours talking, hanging out, and playing video games together. I remember the first couple of times we had to get groceries during the pandemic, my mom did the new curbside pickup from Hyvee so that we didn’t have to go in. After the first couple of times, she would start asking me and my brother to go pick it up. We used this time to our advantage and would drive around for an hour before picking up the food. Because gas was so cheap at the time we weren’t worried about going through a tank of gas in a couple of days. We would use this time driving around listening to new music or talking about things happening at the time. My favorite though, was catching up on all the stories we had from the past 3-4 years of our lives that we hadn’t had the time previously to share with each other.
These hard times eventually passed and he went off to college the next fall in Iowa City. Starting high school myself I was pretty busy, so I didn’t think about him being gone as much. But knowing we spent our time during the pandemic catching up and becoming closer gave me peace of mind not seeing him for long periods of time. We still text and Snapchat every day four years later, something that we never did when we lived together before he left for college. Because of the time we spent during COVID-19, I will forever be grateful for family and friends and the relationships I have with them.