Tag Archives: Covid-19

Not As Hoped

Posted on by under Family, Health, Loss

August 3, 2021 — my birthday — my wife and I were enjoying our first overnight trip since the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020. We didn’t know then that it would be the last we’d have together living with the independence we take so much for granted.

We decided to keep it simple, making a road trip from our Maryland home to Pennsylvania and spending time at various points of interest in the southeastern part of the state.

We had a lovely lunch in Havre de Grace, Maryland, in the outdoor seating of a restaurant overlooking the Susquehanna River.

My wife at Tyler Arboretum

We stayed in a hotel in Chadd’s Ford. From there we visited the Tyler Arboretum and the town of Media, where we did some shopping and bought bubble tea.

We had a great dinner for my birthday, outdoors at a nearby restaurant. The summer Olympic Games were occurring in Tokyo, postponed from the year before, and we watched a few events on the television that night.

Our children were off living their lives, moving ahead after the long wait caused by Covid-19. Both called that day.

That summer our oldest had moved out to begin graduate school at Pennsylvania State University. He called to discuss how he and his girlfriend were settling in at their new apartment.

Our youngest was working at a summer camp as a counselor. He called to share how things were going, along with some frustrations regarding the camp staff and how situations were being handled.

Despite the fact that our kids were elsewhere — or maybe because of it — my wife and I felt that we’d mostly left behind us the concerns and restrictions from the past year and a half. It was an enjoyable bit of freedom.

And of hope. We began to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel created by the Covid-19 pandemic. We were feeling that we’d survived, that life would go on, that we could enjoy some of the dividends of having made it this far — through parenting, through a global contagion, through the more difficult years of our lives.

But all that would be halted just five months later. When my wife experienced a ruptured aneurysm in January of 2022, life would not be as we’d hoped.

We’ve spent the last four years adjusting to what is too easily called the “new normal.” Thoughts of a quick recovery have proven to be unrealistic. My wife lost her job and the ability to do many of the things she enjoyed. She applied for (and ultimately received approval for) federal disability payments.

Instead of living out our later years with travel and some well-earned ease, we are now in the positions of being caregiver taking care of one who’s lost their independence.

Perhaps the timing of it all is what’s most frustrating. We put in the work, we endured the hardships, but now are unable to reap many of the benefits.

It doesn’t feel fair. But I also realize that fairness is not a guarantee for anyone.

What’s left is a constant feeling of discontent, softened now and again by some of life’s simpler pleasures. But I can’t help the urge to look once in a while at what’s not available, and think about whether it might ever be available again.

Did You Serve?

Posted on by under Loss

Years from now, our children and our children’s children will ask us what it was like to live through the Great Covid-19 Pandemic.

WW2 ration stickers

By that time, it will be written about in history books and the subject of documentary films. It will seem distant and abstract to future generations, in the same way that World War 2 seems distant and abstract to my generation.

It is reasonable to expect questions from these young people as they seek to understand the magnitude of what we have gone through. These will be the same types of questions that my generation would ask someone who lived through World War 2: Did you serve? What was it like? Did you support the war effort? Were there things about life on the home front that were unusual, out of the ordinary? How did you feel about the restrictions and rationing that the government set up?

With the pandemic, the questions will be slightly different but they will be analogous to the questions about World War 2. I have listed a few here:

Questions for the WW2 generation Questions for the Covid-19 generation
Did you serve? Were you a doctor, nurse, or other health care worker directly caring for people sick with and dying from Covid-19?
Did you serve honorably?* Did you as a health care worker support and reinforce the public health measures put in place to slow the spread of the disease?
Did you support the war effort? Did you not flaunt or actively oppose vaccination and face mask requirements? Did you do your part to socially distance and cooperate with public health measures?
What was the home front like? How did it feel to have to wear masks in public almost all the time; quarantine or isolate for days, weeks, or months; have schools move online and events cancelled; and make decisions about the relative risk of what would otherwise be a normal, everyday activity?
Did you lose a friend, loved one or family member? Did you lose a friend, loved one or family member?

Two years into this pandemic, I don’t think it is too early to begin pondering what our legacy will be. How well did we handle this crisis? Did we come together as a nation to fight the threat? If not (and clearly, we have not), why didn’t we? What prevented us from doing so, and what will that mean for any threats, domestic or foreign, that arise in the future?

Sadly, people are beginning (or maybe it’s been going on a long time) to view fellow Americans with suspicion, not unlike, I imagine, the French who collaborated with the Nazis and the French who actively fought against the Nazis. That makes it very hard to remain united as a country.

Will this country of the people, by the people, and for the people survive on this Earth?

I hope so. But in the meantime, there is work to be done.

*People presume that everyone who serves in the military serves honorably. However, the facts are that some people do not, and end up being court martialed and dishonorably discharged. It’s not a comfortable question to ask, but it’s valid. There reportedly are doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others who have refused the vaccine, spread misinformation about ivermectin and other things, and distributed counterfeit vaccine cards. This is not honorable behavior.

The Road Trip

Posted on by under Compassion, Family, Loss

We were somewhere near the Tennessee-Virginia border in early April. Night was falling, and I was at the wheel of our minivan. We’d been driving for most of the day, having left Arkansas a little before noon.

My son Julian was in the passenger seat, queuing up music on his phone to play this new Canadian artist he’d recently discovered. I was trying not to lose sight of the other car in our caravan, the black Chevrolet with my other son and his girlfriend. The interstate was hilly here and with their taillights not working properly, it was easy to lose track of them.

Julian had driven until we switched drivers somewhere near Knoxville. We’d run through a variety of conversation topics, and the scenery rushing by outside had kept our attention. But with dusk and a change of drivers came a change in mood, as we continued to roll into the night.

The coronavirus pandemic had only recently become a reality, and it had been three weeks since I’d begun working from home every day.

As the music played, I asked him how community college was going, now that they’d moved classes online.

“I’m not going to class anymore,” he said. “And I don’t think I’m going to enroll in the fall.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Being online isn’t working for me,” he said. “And I think this coronavirus thing is only going to get worse.”

We listened to the music for a minute.

“You’ve been staying in your room a lot,” I said. “Some days I hardly see you.”

“I need my space,” he said.

It was hard to be optimistic about the coming months. Anything I could think to say would sound hollow. I nodded in agreement, but realized he couldn’t see that in the fading light.

“What’s your plan, then?” I said, throwing the topic back to him.

“I don’t have one,” he said. “What’s the use anyway? It feels like the whole world is a shit show right now. Everything I expected for this year isn’t going to happen.”

I glanced over at him. His dimly-lit face gazed out at the highway ahead while he got quiet again as the music played. He leaned forward to turn up the volume.

That night, I had no way of seeing just how bad it would get, both in the world and in Julian’s life. The weeks and months to come would be filled with awful news, the shutting down of normal life, the cancelling of so much, and Julian being fired from his job, retreating further from his mother and me, leaving the house to go smoking, getting drunk alone in his room late at night.

But we had a long way to go still until we could get home to relative comfort and some sleep.