A girlfriend of mine told me about a hundred years ago that everything has a price.

Sometimes when you want something  you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to pay the price.

Sometimes you know the price and you get to decide and if it’s too high, you let it go.

Sometimes you don’t know the price, then it becomes a gamble.

Then you have to decide the pros and cons of that gamble.

I’ve never forgotten her words and have used that thought process often.

I’m a nurse and I have a high respect for science and the medical professionals but at first I didn’t want the Covid Vaccine.

My girlfriends words swam around in my brain.

I could gamble and……….

If I didn’t take the vaccine, I might escape the virus all together.

Or I could become infected and experience anything from no symptoms at all to well…..death.

On the other hand, if I went with the vaccine, I might or might not react to it.

I could maybe have something as minor as discomfort at the injection site or, some of the many known side effects making me pretty miserable for a day or two. 

It was a crap shoot either way with a possible price to pay.

I read and listened.

I trusted what Dr Fauci was telling us on the nightly news.

Eventually I decided that the possible price of NOT receiving the vaccine seemed much higher to me.

Injection number one rendered me 50% safe.

In just a few days thanks to number two, I’ll be 95% safe.

Yesterday afternoon my daughter Julie called to tell me they were on their way home, very near our house and just received an invite from friends to join them for a Margarita and Chips at Chevy’s.

She wanted to know if we’d babysit our grandson for maybe an hour.

We adore this particular grandson and were delighted that he was coming for a visit.

Within minutes, I could hear her as she approached the front door.  

She was laughing and talking to our grandson, BEANZ, a Golden Retriever,

With nothing on my face other a huge smile, I opened the door.

My kid hasn’t seen a huge smile from my masked face for almost a year.

Julie was one of the first Californians to receive the Covid Vaccine. 

She works in the ER of Sacramento’s University Hospital.

She’s beloged to the  “95% Safe Club” for many weeks but still as I asked, she always wears her mask when she comes up to our door.

Our front door…..as close as she’s come to inside since March 2020.

“TAKE IT OFF” I said through my huge smile.

She was still for seconds, processing what she’d just heard.

I hadn’t let her come even near our front door for almost a year without a mask on and all of a sudden I was telling her to take it off?

She quickly pulled the elastic loops off her ears and and then in a blink there we were, looking full-faced at each other.

It’s been almost a year since we’ve seen each other’s faces.

I said two words….. “Come in.”

We had a dog once who sometimes was so excited to get outside that he’d go right through the screen.

For a moment, like our goofy dog Mr Lincoln, I thought Julie was comin’ in the same way, through the screen, no time to open the door.

One leap and she was inside and she couldn’t contain her excitement.

“HI MOM”, and she danced round and round and clapped her hands.

Our masks were off, we were not social distanced and and my mom arms were open   AND JUST LIKE THAT all those months of aching to hug her but resisting because of fear of the monster were gone.

We held tight for a few moments of just silence but not letting go.

I thought of every time that child has come to my door masked and wanting to be near but knowing she couldn’t.

And how I ached to just say SCREW IT and forget my fear of the lurking monster waiting for another victim.

But I kept thinking of my girlfriend’s words…..a price to pay.

Would one unmasked hug during a pandemic rob me of hundreds after the pandemic?

I didn’t know.

But, I’d made a decision so that I could have that hug and feel good and safe about it.

I took that vaccine, number one and number two and there was a small price to pay of body aches and tiredness but they were gone and my kid was in my arms.

We held tight. 

We were glued.

I wasn’t sure we were ever gonna let go.

She danced through the house.

We did it.

We made it to the other side.

I think not only with my daughter’s but with every hug I give and receive from this day forward, I’ll feel them with my arms but also with my heart.

And when I close my eyes with those hugs, I never, ever want to forget the price many payed and how very precious a hug is.

Whenever you can………. HUG!