Pandemic Story: Saturday, April 18, 2020

I awaken to a snow cover that fell overnight, winter’s random swipe at New England. I light a fire to take out the chill in the living room, when I had hoped to work in the garden. The season is upside down from its usual progression.

Nothing is normal in the age of the coronavirus unleashed upon us.

INNOCENCE

I spent the first week of March in New York City visiting my two little grandchildren. Each morning I took them to daycare or school, then found a cafe—Maison Kaiser or Nice Matin—to enjoy my coffee and tend to texts, email, and the New York Times online.

My author friend Marilyn came in from Long Island for lunch and the Dorothea Lange photography exhibit at MOMA. Another day, I took my grandson on the #1 train (his favorite) to the Brooklyn Museum and Botanical Gardens. I spent evenings in the apartment for dinner with my family and then a late goodnight text with David, waiting in Massachusetts to hear from me about my day.

On an Upper West Side walk, I spotted a sign in the Apthorp Pharmacy window that the Shingles vaccine was in stock. I’d been on a waiting list at home for two years. My insurance even covered it out-of-state. I felt lucky.

On Friday, I boarded the Northeast Regional back to Route 128 Dedham. The train was only half full, unusual for a weekend. On the way down, I had enjoyed a cordial conversation with a woman in my age range. On the trip home, I looked for a seat without a mate, acknowledging my first sensation of awareness that close proximity to another person might be problematic.

My Tundra pickup awaited in the Amtrak parking garage. She’s never disappointed me, always firing up nicely after five or six, even ten days idle.

Feeling fortunate and safe, I headed home.

GATHERING CLOUDS

By the end of my New York week, there were 70 coronavirus cases and 11 deaths in Washington state. The next week, news of cases and deaths escalated, including an alarming rise in a nursing home. But that was on the West Coast.

Back home in Massachusetts, activities and meetings continued pretty much as usual. The Monday topic in my Athenaeum discussion group centered on the results of the Super Tuesday primaries the prior week, with Biden sweeping and Saunders tanking. 

On Tuesday, I checked in for my regular spin class. I felt vaguely uncomfortable with everyone exercising strenuously around me. I knew I wouldn’t return, but no one else seemed concerned.

I reported to my town hall job on Wednesday and noticed containers of disinfectant wipes strategically placed throughout the building.

On Thursday, I brought a truckload of old legal files to the shredder and handed each box directly over to the workers. Business as usual.

The news of the virus seemed abstract, although public events were being cancelled here out of an abundance of caution. I had tix for a Riverdance performance on St. Patrick’s Day, but that event would be postponed too. 

By then, over 100 people had tested positive for the virus in Massachusetts, but it’s a state with a population of 6.98 million. Most early cases were traceable to the Biogen company conference held in Boston in February. The outbreak here seemed to be confined to the participants and those in direct contact with them.

On Friday, I met my friend Mary for breakfast at the Wenham Teahouse, partially to discuss our concerns with these developments.

We were careful to sit across the table from each other. I noticed that the waitstaff handed out the bills with a communal pen in the usual folding plastic cases. I waved her over and requested that she bring the billing slip itself, without a cover. I used my own pen. No one else in the room seemed aware of the risk in handling common items. 

I had made a reservation for David’s Saturday night birthday dinner at a small Italian restaurant. We had our first date there four years ago, sharing life stories until the bartender kicked us out at midnight. My gut told me to cancel and make dinner at home. The next day, the governor ordered a complete shutdown of bars and restaurants.

My breakfast with Mary on March 13th was the last time I went out for a meal, or to any public place, event, or meeting. Suddenly, everything was being cancelled or closed left and right, from hairdressers and gyms to Starbucks, performances, sporting events, travel reservations, schools and colleges, workplaces, religious services, state parks, and hiking trails. 

IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

Fast forward to date of this writing, as Massachusetts surges towards its peak. Several field hospitals just opened to handle the anticipated overflow of patients. We have 36,372 COVD-19 cases and 1,560 deaths. The Boston Globe ran sixteen pages of death notices.

New York City has 131,263 cases and 8,893 deaths, a deadly battle zone in our own Northeast. Many compared it to 9/11 to make the urgent point that three times as many died from the virus. 

Since my breakfast at the Teahouse thirty-six days ago, we have witnessed global turmoil; sickness and death of many, including their medical caregivers; conflicting information and advice; large scale unemployment, failing small businesses; serious financial hardship; and unforgivable political spats and posturing over testing, resources, blame, and ultimate power and authority.

It’s a hot mess.

This last week, demonstrators crowded together, screamed, and protested, mostly with brazenly uncovered faces, at state capitols in Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia, and Texas, demanding an immediate end to those annoying stay-at-home restrictions. Just a few weeks of lockdown and they are outraged, angrily framing it as government suppression of their rights. The NYPD issued sixty summonses at an “Anti-Lockdown” party in Brooklyn.

Yes, freedom to die, and in the course of it, spreading disease and death to those others trying mightily to stay safe and well. The disease of toxic ignorance and unrestrained selfishness. A disgrace among nations.

Listen to The Rolling Stones, people. You can’t always get what you want.

After living in the midst of mortal danger and daily uncertainty, exacerbated by the eruption of irrational, provocative, and dangerous behaviors, I cannot imagine returning to “life as I knew it.”

At an undetermined future date, I will venture out, as if exiting from a darkened movie house, squinting in the light that strains my eyes. I will set my own careful parameters, most likely many steps behind the officially permitted. I don’t believe that my safety can be assured anytime soon, even more so as an older adult with the compromised immune system that age generally brings, regardless of fitness level.

That’s my mindset for now.

I’m thinking that the efforts I put into accepting and adapting to isolation as a way of life will somehow turn into reliable building blocks I can count on down the line. My instincts tell me that the magnitude of the upheaval cannot be papered over by the fanfare of grand re-opening plans in organized phases.

Our leaders paint with a broad brush but mostly miss the profound impact of the personal trauma and hellish experience that defines living in a pandemic. All previous pandemics were lethal—this one is no exception.

I recently discovered that a member of my husband’s family died from influenza during the 1918 pandemic. I recall my mother-in-law Frances mentioning her older sister Jennie “who died from a sickness.” Family records show that she would have been 21 years old at her death. Paul’s cousin Barbara confirms that this was indeed true, as her middle name is Joan in memory of Jennie. Further research brought out that people in their twenties were hardest hit, whatever the reason, and Jennie was there for the taking.

Frances lived into the 21st century, to age 99. Sadly, her sister missed out on growing up in the new century unfolding after the lethal flu subsided. The painful loss of a beloved sister and daughter long ago connects me to the suffering then, even as I grapple with the demands of the struggle that plagues us now.

SAFE PASSAGE

After my husband Paul died (in 2013), I clung to simple activities that required no initiation on my part. Follow the instructions in the exercise class. Respond to writing prompts provided by the leader of my bereavement group. Mindlessly pull weeds in the garden. Write dozens of acknowledgments for condolences and donations. Accept invitations for outings from sympathetic friends. Experience the grief instead of chasing it away.

Everything got stripped down to the basics until I could find my footing.

I stood my ground and emerged when I was ready, and then, only then, could I open my eyes in affirmation of life and its promise. Those who have lived through loss know that a timetable of recovery is never one-size-fits-all.

My holding pattern had served its purpose. With this life lesson in mind, I venture into each day to face the challenge of the present, and the new way of life we must accept. Yet no inconvenience can dampen the gratitude I feel that friends and family are careful for themselves and each other. 

When I feel safe enough to take the train to New York City again, I will have made it full circle into the future, along with the rest of you.