Covid comes calling
“Well, shit.”
Those two words are the distillation of seven months of stress and anxiety coming to fruition. They are the words I text to my husband in response to his text that his Covid test has come back positive.
It all happened jarringly quickly following a time period that’s felt so drawn out. A cough in the evening that we both told ourselves, unconvincingly, was probably nothing led to a test in the morning. Since he works for a health care organization, he was able to take a rapid test, and 20 minutes later … well, shit.
I remember the Christmas card I gave my husband last year. “2020 will be an amazing year.” And it has been. For all the wrong reasons. We haven’t necessarily lost any more than the average person, but the setbacks have been ordinary, yet devastating.
Some losses were easy to bear. With little emotion, I let go of the trip we planned to take for our 20th anniversary. Some I’ve accepted, telling myself that I needed to keep going and grieve when this is all over: my oldest son’s high school graduation and his subsequent decision to sacrifice his freshman year on his college campus to study from home instead. My middle and youngest son’s passing from middle to high school and elementary to middle school, respectively, with no farewell to their schools and teachers. It hit me hard to miss out on a formal goodbye to the elementary school that was our boys’ home for collectively, 12 years. It’s breathtaking to contemplate the number of losses you can absorb when forced to do so. A year ago, I never would have thought it would be within me to do so.
At the same time, I write this from my comfortable home. My husband and I both have still have jobs, and I have the privilege of being able work from home and be there for my kids as they do virtual school. We have health insurance and a refrigerator full of groceries.
So, when “well, shit” hit our household, we were in a better position than many. And it shouldn’t have been as stunning as it was. We live in a city that’s the hottest of hot spots. Community spread has been happening here for weeks. And yet you still tell yourself, not me. We’ve been careful since the beginning. Count us among the many who have no idea where we got it or even which one of us got sick first. (My positive test came back today.) “I’m sure I’ll get it eventually. Maybe I’ve had it already and didn’t even know it,” someone tells me upon hearing our news. I used to say the same. It’s what we tell ourselves.
When I saw news of others dying from Covid, I would hungrily seek out information about the person that would make me feel better. If the person was older than me, well there you have it. If my age or younger, like some amateur pathologist, I would search for signs or information that indicated they had some kind of preexisting condition, all to placate myself with a false sense of security. Beneath it all, since the beginning, for me and so many, that’s the fear. I could get this and I could die. Or someone close to me could. It’s something I’ve grappled with both consciously and subconsciously for the past many months.
A scant eight months ago, I sat in my counselor’s office sharing with her my fears about the virus coming into my house because my middle son has asthma and is prone to getting fearsome bouts of pneumonia. She encouraged me not catastrophize. I don’t blame her. It was the right advice for the time, even though I didn’t believe for a moment, even then, that the virus wouldn’t spread far and wide. What it’s actually wrought, I could not have imagined then. Now, here it sits, incubating, in our house.
After “well, shit” comes many emotions. I came to grips with the news more quickly than I expected I would that day, but when nighttime arrived, I tossed and turned with anxiety. Would we be OK? Probably. But no one is guaranteed that and certainly not people in their mid-40s like we are.
Once again, it appears we are lucky. Our three boys have tested negative. So far. My husband and I both got flu-like sick for several days but are feeling better each day, save for me losing my sense of taste and smell. Much to my despair. Another thing I told myself could never happen to me. I watch my middle son worriedly and hope it doesn’t come for him.
As for a way forward for the wider world, I don’t know. I long ago tired of hearing the phrase that we’re all in the this together (unless it was meant in the darkest way possible) and have little patience for discussing the “new normal” that will come after the virus. We’ve already lost so many and so much. The 25 and counting people in my city who have died are not some abstraction. They are people’s friends and neighbors and parents and grandparents and loved ones. We must refuse to accept them as collateral damage.
We stand on the precipice of change, upheaval and possible unrest. I’m inconsequential in all of this. One of more than 30,000 people in my state, in just one week, to test positive for this virus. But I have a voice. And I can vote. I hope you will too. Like your life depends on it. Because it does.
