Pandemic Diaries 23
Things seem pretty quiet here in Fairfax, Va., a solid blue suburb of DC. We took to the warnings fairly quickly, and folks are very accommodating and amiable, and respectful of everybody’s distance and personal space. What were once busy thoroughfares are pretty empty. The weather’s been beautiful, so some people are out for strolls or walking their dogs. As for driving, it’s mostly just folks making the occasional trip to the grocery store. Here’s a pic of a line waiting to get into Trader Joe’s (where they only allow 20-25 shoppers in at one time, they disinfect the shopping cart you want right in front of you, and provide gloves for you). As you can see, folks are six feet apart in line, with TJ employees helping to enforce it.I’m immuno-compromised myself, so I’ve been pretty darn careful. I had to make a trip to a different grocery store, and I noticed that they made all the aisles “one way”, with 6 foot marker tapes:So, in Fairfax it’s as if the war is hundreds of miles away, and we’re just waiting for the front to move closer. I’m only aware of one person in our neighborhood who caught the virus: luckily, as he had come back from school, his parents insisted on quarantining him in the house for 14 days. Good thing, too — as the teenager never showed any symptoms at all, and yet tested positive.In my broader circle, however, things aren’t great. I know a number of folks in NYC who caught it, but, as they were all in their 20’s, came out OK. On the other hand, however, we heard some awful news. My daughter (who went to college in Manhattan) lived in a girls dorm that was actually an apartment building, and there was a couple in their 50’s who were sort of the RA’s. They were affectionately called the “Dorm Parents”. They were never blessed with children, and so they referred to the college students as their kids.Yesterday, my daughter’s “dorm dad” passed away after struggling with the virus. Oh, his poor widow! As I write this, my daughter is attending the funeral, via Zoom. Afterwards the widow will go back to her apartment — and mourn alone. And “celebrate” Passover tonight. Alone.Tonight begins our celebration of Pesach / Passover. As for me and my family, it means “unplugging” for three full days (the first two days of Pesach, and then our Sabbath). I, frankly, welcome the respite from all the terrible news going on around us. Obviously, our seder tonight will be different from all others (“why is this seder different from all other seders?”). For starters, I’m in my 60’s and it will be the smallest seder I’ve attended in my life. But on a spiritual level, it will resonate like never before. During the seder, we read the words, originally in the Talmud, that it is incumbent upon us to consider it as if we, personally, left Egypt. (In Hebrew, Egypt is “Mitzrayim”, which also means “constricting places” — the idea is to leave our “constricting place”, whether that be slaves to peer pressure, to societal pressure, and so forth). While in prior years this involved a stretch of the imagination, not so this year. We are quarantined in our houses, just like the Children of Israel was on the night before our Exodus. We’ll be thinking of, among other things, the doctors, nurses, and other medical providers who risked their lives to save others, just as the midwives did when saving Jewish babies. And, most importantly, tonight we will be look the Angel of Death in the eye and tell him to get lost, to “pass over” our houses, because we choose life over death, hope over despair, and faith over fear. May we be redeemed, speedily and in our days.
I am a relatively new reader, but have been enjoying reading the your pandemic diaries series very much. Thank you for sharing them and for taking time to wade through them all.
I’ve been trying to finish my entry for 3 weeks, but circumstances keep changing and my focus keeps shifting.
I am wife of 4 years to one of the vulnerable, my husband having had a nasty run-in with a respiratory virus when he was only 39. I have been reading that some men don’t seem to have good biological defenses against viruses generally and I would hazard a guess he’s one. Husband underwent open-heart surgery and was left, we found out a couple years later, with scarring in his heart, either from the surgery or from the infection, not sure which.
Since it appears that the m.o. of this new coronavirus is to work its way from the respiratory tract to the cardio-pulmonary system, we don’t think he’d come out of an encounter with it well, or at all. In addition, we live in close contact with my husband’s elderly parents who might not fare well either. (My own family is on the West Coast.)
The past 6 weeks, have been a slow torture of decisions.
End of Feb/beginning of March: Would my husband agree to let me do all the shopping/out in public trips? He balked; it seemed like overreacting. When there are cases in the adjacent county?, I asked. Yes, that would be ok.Mid-March: Do we take our planned long weekend trip for our anniversary? Can I safely do my apocalypse shopping in the next town over?
Late March: Should I cancel upcoming doctors’ appointments? What about his cousin’s wedding in May? My sister’s planned visit in April? What about the dog’s rabies vaccine?
Etc, etc, until we arrived at the point where we are now, in which we are not going out in public, although my husband’s very small business was deemed “essential,” and we are trying to figure out when to close/if there’s any safe way to stay open.
We’re both Catholic from birth, trying to be devout. There’s been a growing outcry from some friends and acquaintances in my social media that Masses shouldn’t be suspended/this pandemic is not as dangerous as the experts would have us believe.
It’s distressing and I need to start looking away, as engagement with that kind of thinking involves making protests along the lines that I do love Jesus and the Church and the sacraments, but this is a serious situation that is actually dangerous to my husband and many others, whose physical lives are worth something.
In actual fact, I don’t love Jesus enough, sinner that I am. I can’t stop my husband from catching the virus and I don’t actually know what would happen if he did. I don’t want to be watching Masses from my living room. I can’t believe that this is Holy Week with no public liturgies. There aren’t words for what Easter Sunday will be like. I wish the situation were different, but the local bishop’s decision came as a mercy to me – one awful difficult decision taken off my plate. I am scandalized at the apparent callousness of prolife Catholics, even though I suppose they don’t see the gravity of the situation and their motivations are good.
I have appreciated your inclusion of positives in your own writing and the diaries you share, so I should also say that so far our area seems to be coping and we ourselves are very fortunate. We live in a semi-rural part of MD close to where the Potomac River empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It is an exceptionally beautiful place to be quarantined. We got high-speed internet a couple years ago by mistake (!) – the company was supposed to be laying cable for someone else and didn’t realize until it was in the ground- so we can keep in touch with friends and family easily. We have one hospital in our county whose population has grown tremendously over recent years, but so far our case count seems to be low and the hospital stable. My husband opines that people are out more than they ought to be, but I have noticed less traffic on our road anyway. Maryland seems to be at a tipping point, and I hope we can avoid the fate of poor New York City.Thank you again for your writing. For me it is a necessary alternative (antidote?) to news or social media.
From Evansville, Indiana:
We had our first COVID-19 death in Vanderburgh County yesterday. They published his name, the names of his family and who was infected. I was very surprised.
For the most part people seem to be abiding by the self-isolation rules, but I haven’t ventured out to the grocery store since last week so I don’t know.
Fun fact, Evansville had the honor of being the fattest city in the country a couple of years ago. You wouldn’t know it now with so many people out and about walking their dogs and taking a stroll. I don’t recognize most of them walking around in our neighborhood.
My husband works in a psychiatric hospital so he is still marching into work. I’m telling myself that he has antibodies against it because when we returned from Italy late fall he developed a mysterious cough and fever, which he has never had in our 24 years together. I worry most for our respective mothers, one in the suburbs of Chicago and the other outside of Boston. We moved to this area that none of our city friends had ever heard of precisely for reasons like this. We didn’t want to be in a big city when the you-know-what hit the fan. But alas our mothers wouldn’t hear of following us. It’s like ground hog day speaking with my mother in the nursing home: “Mom, the whole world is on lock-down, no one can visit you.” She laughs thinking I’m exaggerating. “No seriously Mom, the whole world is on lock-down!”. Same conversation, every day. My niece who works in another nursing home outside of Boston got sent home with a fever. In order to return to work she had to be tested in one of those drive-through’s. She said it hurt very much. Thankfully her results came back negative in three days. But now one of her residents is positive, so what will this mean for her? What will it mean if one of our mothers gets sick? Why don’t they allow at least one family member to be suited-up like the nurses and be with their loved ones so they don’t have to die alone?
But I’m thankful though for all that we have. I don’t even want to think of the day we don’t have electricity or running water or no food on the shelves because the supply chain has been disrupted. Pascha will be very strange indeed. Will my husband be one of the “lucky five” to be able to participate in the Paschal service or will the directive change before then? Oh, and then we had an F-2 tornado rip through a neighborhood two miles away a week and a half ago! Lots of damage, but no injuries. What is God telling us? I’m trying to pray more and control my passions, like trying not to despair. A local plastics company laid off 600 people and a major car manufacturer temporarily shut down production. There will be so many people who won’t know where their next meal is coming from and I pray that this will end soon. But what will the fallout be? Will it be business as usual or will the world as we know it be changed forever? I suppose these are the questions on everyone’s minds.
Thank you all for your missives. Please keep sending them — I’m at rod — at — amconmag — dot — com. As ever, don’t forget to put PANDEMIC DIARIES in the subject line, and say where you’re from. I’m especially interested to hear how you are faring as Easter arrives, and, for Jewish readers, through Passover. We Orthodox Christians are a week behind Western Christians this year, on Easter. Next week will be our Holy Week.
