Life in a Pandemic: Gavin & Lara Jackson
An Imprint editor interviews Gavin and Lara Jackson about their perspective on life in a pandemic.
Tell our readers a little bit about yourselves and how long you’ve attended Grace.
In June of 2019, we moved to Toronto for Gavin’s one-year fellowship in cardiac imaging at Toronto General Hospital and started to attend Grace Toronto a couple of months later. Previously, I (Lara) had been working for our church in Cape Town, South Africa, in operations and project management. Our son, Callum, was born on May 2 at Mount Sinai.
What has been your biggest challenge during COVID?
Being here without family and friends during such a high moment in life has been really difficult, especially not being able to share in the excitement [of our new baby] with them and feed off their joy when we’re exhausted. We live in a 60 square meter apartment, so there’s a bit of cabin fever. Everything is temporary, given that we’re supposed to be flying back to South Africa at the end of July, but we have had everything we needed which is a blessing.
What has been your most important spiritual lesson?
We’ve really seen God’s provision and perfect timing. When I (Lara) was at my 36-week appointment, I mentioned to the doctor that I had itchy palms and feet. She suggested sending me for blood work, and the following morning, after my results showed that my liver enzymes were unusually high, my doctor called to say that I needed to get to Mount Sinai in the next 30 minutes. After some tests and blood work, they discovered I had three large gallstones. I’m not really a hospital person. I’ve never had an operation, but those next couple of days of tests and baby monitoring made me much more familiar and at ease with the hospital, so I knew a bit of what to expect when I went into labour. It was then that they also discovered lots of uterine activity, and after two days, I began feeling those contractions, which led us to go to the hospital again. The baby was born a couple of hours later! I had a wonderful birth experience and luckily things went fairly smoothly and quickly (thank goodness for my mom’s quick-birth genes!). I remember laying in the labour ward and listening to some worship music on the playlist I created when one of the nurses came in and said, “This is so cool! I love that song. It’s like being in church again!”
After Callum was born, Wendy Liu (a staff member at Grace) connected us with families from the church and our Grace Gathering group for meals, which they dropped off at the door. (We even got roast beef and vegetables for one meal. It honestly felt like Christmas!). One couple, who have become close friends of ours, had a car, and they got us to and from the hospital. I don’t know what we would have done otherwise. We didn’t want to take Uber and TTC, and we don’t know anyone else with a car. It has really opened our eyes, receiving this kind of help, provision, generosity, and love through practical strangers. It has opened our eyes to ways in which we can help other people going forward and can be a blessing to others. It has shown us that doing a small thing can make such a big difference. There’s just been so many threads of God’s goodness woven throughout the experience!
For me (Gavin), I’m still learning what grace means, what having patience means, how to be dependent on God’s grace for each other and for a little one, especially when he’s screaming in your ear. You have to learn quickly how to pray and rely on God for soothing [the baby].
During this time of COVID, you realize, like the author of Ecclesiastes, that everything in the world is smoke and mirrors, that there are more important things in life. You see what people are dependent on, what they should depend on, how they should rely on God and his mercy and grace. You’re stripped of everything else and left to ask: what is your life worth? What are your real values?
When life returns to “normal,” what new habit from this season do you hope to sustain? What will you most look forward to?
I (Gavin) feel really lucky that I’ve been able to be at home. For me, I want to continue to enjoy being with my family rather than trying to work all the time. As hard as it has been, the challenges of living in a small space together with an infant have brought us closer, as we only have each other to rely on.
For me (Lara), I hope to keep enjoying quality family time. I hope to enjoy things at a slower pace, to be present in every situation. Before COVID [when I worked], everything was fast-paced. There were too many things filling my day. This has taught me to slow down, to appreciate doing things slowly and with intention, to want more than half-hearted relationships with loads of people. I’m mostly looking forward to seeing family [in South Africa], introducing the baby to friends and family, to setting up our house again—to normalness.
It’s a longing for home.
Photos provided by Gavin & Lara Jackson