Creation Date
2020Description
“When COVID-19 forced schools to close in the spring of 2020, my grandson, Tristan Overby of Coon Rapids, started coming to us (grandparents) for distance learning. It was a rocky time, as the schools were not prepared for distance learning and Tristan was struggling school ‘online.’ It was just too strange, as was so much as the world went upside down. Tristan was a little bit afraid of ‘the virus.’ He was 8 years old and had a hard time understanding how such a pandemic could happen. He asked ‘why?’ a lot and there were no answers. He worried about his mom (Stacy Overby) who worked in a hospital and Mom was concerned that she might bring the virus home. She worked in mental health, so not a super high risk area, but she came home and showered every day, putting all her clothes in to wash in hot water before she picked up Tristan from us. She also had to stop riding the Northstar rail line to work as it was feared mass transit would be a sure way to spread the virus.Tristan’s aunt, Pam Wendel, worked for Allina Health Systems and she sent a pattern provided by Allina for masks with the request for donations. Tristan helped make masks with me. His job was to turn the masks right side out when assembled and get them ready for top stitching. He was fine making the masks, but had a little trouble with the idea of wearing one himself. He said masks were for Mommy’s hospital and the Sheriff (we made a bunch for Anoka County Deputies), but not him.It didn’t matter much at first as he never got to go anywhere like the store or any sort of gathering, so he didn’t need a mask until the state mandates began. When sheltering him was no longer practical, Tristan had to wear the mask. He didn’t like it, but did it because he was still very much afraid of ‘the virus.’ He told me several times he had dreams about wearing a mask or getting in trouble because he didn’t have one, but he still didn’t want to wear one unless he had to.Mommy explained (many times) that ‘everybody’ needed to wear a mask to protect each other and themselves and that the state of Minnesota had a mandate that everyone over the age of 5 had to wear a mask. That was when I got the idea of making a mask for my garden angel. The walk from his home to ours went through the back fence of our yard and right past the garden where my cement angel stood. When Tristan first saw the angel with her mask on, he stopped and just stared. I asked him what? He hesitated a bit, then said, ‘The angel has to wear a mask too?’ I explained that no, a cement angel wouldn’t get COVID, but she wanted to be like everybody else and since her job was to watch over people, she decided to wear a mask, just like him.Tristan hugged that cement angel! From then on, when he went by her, he would say hi, or thank you, or some other kind comment. One day, the homework was to make a video about something ‘beautiful’ that the kids liked or wanted to share and send it to their teacher (Holly Fenwick at Sand Creek Elementary). Tristan’s idea was to show his teacher a flower garden (it was later in May) and the angel that was wearing a mask like he was.When we went on walks around the neighborhood, Tristan was always on the look out for garden characters who were wearing masks. The flock of sheep each with different colored masks were the best! That house was on 121st Avenue just west of Sand Creek School. We never met the owners.This all made wearing a mask not so scary and even fun to pick out which mask to wear that day. I made him several with cartoon characters, animals, candy or fruits, so we could have fun with the masks. The angel wore her mask until the mask mandate in Minnesota was lifted for vaccinated people, so she wore it for a good year. Mine was one of the first garden ‘characters’ I saw with a mask, but before long, I saw nearly everybody putting masks on their scarecrows, angels, gnomes and even rabbits and sheep.”
Geographic Notes
Coon Rapids, MNGeographic Names
Coon Rapids, Anoka, Minnesota, United States, NA [45.11997,-93.28773] [id:5022025]