As a parent and a teacher—college classes, private music lessons, homeschooling—this pandemic has brought me to the end of myself many times.

The end of my patience, the end of my endurance, the end of my tolerance for twitchy tweens, and the new routine of a husband working from home, the end of my brainpower and the ability to manage all of my tasks. The end of my ability to help when I see my students struggling, losing family members to COVID, nearing homelessness because they or their family have lost work, doing homework while quarantined in their parents’ basement, battling loneliness. I can’t sit in a room with them, hug them, or hand them a tissue for their tears.