We all have dates that serve as landmarks in our lives. Some of them are, of course, personal, while others are more widely shared, based on events. Those are the moments when someone might ask “Where were you when?” That list includes everything from the Challenger disaster to 9/11 and more, all shared experiences that almost everyone can relate to and clearly remember.

The landmark that is foremost for me, right now, is the recognition that my first encounter with COVID was five years ago. Working in leadership in an organization that serves older adults, COVID had a different meaning to me, and to my colleagues, than it might have had to the general public.

I remember hearing about this virus towards the end of 2019 and thinking, naively, that it would never come here, that we would, in all of our scientific and medical sophistication, find ways to prevent it or, at the very least, safely contain it. Even after it breached our shores, I thought that surely there would be an effective treatment as well as a quickly developed preventative. I was, as we all know, wrong.

In March 2020, the world around us was filling with this virus but, early in the month, we had not had a case. I remember saying that I just wanted us to be “an island in a stormy sea.” Of course, there were no islands and the virus hit us and hit us with a vengeance. People became ill very quickly and some of our frail elders died before they even showed evidence of a symptom. There was no information, no help, no resources. In fact, we had little support from our local medical community. There were even “experts” who told us that all we could do was provide comfort care as they expected that “they were all going to die.”

That did not happen and we were adamant that it was not going to happen on our watch. Through the skills of an extraordinary team of staff, with a commitment that we were going to overcome this scourge, we did. We came to work every day, we swallowed our fears and we did what we needed to do. We heard about tools and techniques that hospitals were using and we added them to our protocols. We created our own COVID diet, we found ways to connect elders and families, despite visiting restrictions, and we became family to those who needed us.

Five years later, I still hear my grandson’s voice on the phone. He was 6 years old and he was pleading with me, “Be careful, Noni. Be careful.” I knew those words reflected his parents’ concerns and, while I so loved them for it, I knew what I needed to do, what I could not stop doing.

During those awful weeks, during the stressful year and more that followed, I learned a lot about myself, about leadership, about the strength of the human spirit. I learned that projecting positivity raises everyone’s spirit. I learned that “we can figure it out” is not just a wish, but a reality when you surround yourself with dedicated people. I learned that relying on the help of others can be short sighted and misleading. I learned that we all have a different tolerance for fear and that those who walked away, like the nurse who finished his shift and said “I am not coming back, this is too much for me,” also deserve understanding.

None of us who lived through this pandemic will ever forget it. I am certain that those lived with remote work and school had a challenging experience as well. I am also certain that those of us who never left our vulnerable elders, who faced this unknown, virulent enemy head on, will never be the same. Maybe it is PTSD, maybe it is growth, but, either way, life has rearranged to be pre-COVID and post-COVID. Our learnings, our losses, our pain and our joy, all of them are part of the way in which we fill our full hearts.