It probably feels like you’ve heard every Hot Take that can possibly exist on coronavirus.
Every news outlet, Facebook Expert, and internet troll is sharing an opinion on whether we’re overreacting or underreacting, complaining/gloating about isolation, sharing hoaxes about fake cures, making unfunny jokes and memes, or sharing virtual tip jars for service workers and musicians.
We’re living in unprecedented times. We all have to process and make sense of this surreality as best we can. A lot of people are just starting to come to terms with the idea that life may never be the same, at least for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been coming to terms with that idea since January of 2019, when Don, my husband of two months died in my arms. Sepsis.
Oh, and did I mention that Tony, the person who had become my rock, my shelter, my partner in a time of unimaginable grief, also died in my arms eleven months later? Cancer.
When you’re a newlywed widow, when you’ve lost two of the most important people in your life, the world feels cruel and chaotic. You have to make choices between options that are terrible. Everything you’d planned for yourself comes grinding to a halt. There are lots of people who have no idea what it’s like to be you, telling you what you should do. Death is suddenly a real and tangible presence in your life and you realize you have no control. Nothing is fair. Nothing makes sense.
Sound familiar?
In my experience, grief is a pendulum that swings wildly and unpredictably between moods, feelings, intrusive thoughts, ideas, and memories. Even before coronavirus, the answer to the seemingly simple question of “how are you” was complicated and required self-analysis. Let’s take a look at some of the things I’ve thought and felt over the last few days and weeks.
Wry, bitter humor that I was unwittingly prepared for a hand sanitizer drought, since I spent so much time with an immunocompromised cancer patient.
Bitter jealousy at the people who are “stuck” home with their partners and children. I live by myself, surrounded by death and memories and reminders of what should have been. You are alone with the people you love. I am alone.
Despair that isolation will stretch on without end. One of the only things that distracts me enough to make life worth living right now is connection and community.
A deep yearning. A yearning to be with Don, or Tony, or both. A yearning to be going through this crisis with my husband, who worked in emergency management and would know all the right things to do and say. A yearning to sleep next to the person I love instead of facing every new terror alone.
Some small, savage satisfaction in knowing that other people are feeling even a fraction of the fear and loneliness I feel every day.
A dead-eyed lack of anxiety and care about my own health, because at least if I die, this impossibly unfair life that I have will end.
Nagging fear that this disease could take even more people that I care about away from me.
Hospital flashbacks triggered by the constant discussion of masks and hospital beds and ICUs and respirators. Knowing what it’s like to watch someone you love struggle to breathe, remembering the X-rays and CT scans showing lung blockages and damage.
A weird relief that Tony died before this started, or I would be spending this time in and out of hospitals, deathly afraid that he would catch it, or that I would catch it and give it to him.
I share this not to make you feel sorry for me, but to expand your perspective. Maybe you have some of these same thoughts and fears. Maybe your experiences are vastly different than mine.
Maybe you can be heartened by the fact that by staying home and away from other people, your current discomfort and inconvenience can help save you or someone else from losing everything and living the life I am today.
We can only do what we can do. Death and tragedy are often out of our control. But the experts are saying you can help save lives by staying home. If I can do it, so can you. So for my sake, for Don’s sake and Tony’s sake and the sake of everyone you love or someone else loves, do your part and listen to the people who have done the research and spent thousands of dollars on their fancy graduate degrees.
And check on your people. We’re all each other has.
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