Nanny, Ma, and Aunt Cindy at my mother’s wedding in Aunt Cindy’s garden which is right behind my family’s house. Our properties quite literally share a backyard.
It is Sunday, and my mother is writing my grandmother's obituary.
On Thursday, Nanny tested positive for COVID-19. On Friday, they moved her to hospice. Now, we’re here.
Dementia robbed us of my grandmother’s treasured memories, open heart, and brilliant mind, but it was COVID that robbed us of her life and our goodbyes. My mother cannot give her a back rub. We cannot hold her. I cannot sing her “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” We can stare in, like we’re at an aquarium, and watch her leave us.
I will not make it personal when I remind you to wear your mask, when I say I will not go out with you or visit your home, when I have a political debate with you about public safety, but, for the record, it is personal to me and others even if we don’t make it known in that moment.
I am by no means intending to infringe upon your freedoms when I ask you to do your part in our community. But I was robbed of my freedom to visit my grandmother in her last days because of how careless we’ve been as a community, allowing the infection rate to reach such impossible numbers. We must do everything we can to lower the spread, to save our most vulnerable citizens.
We cannot know when we hang out with someone, or go to a restaurant, or a public place, whether we are being exposed or exposing others to this deadly virus. Are we in contact with an asthmatic person, a caretaker, an irresponsible niece that will visit their unknowing great aunt? And since we can’t know, we have to question what interactions are worth that risk. We have to assume every responsibility in our power.
Nanny and Grandpa Ed on one of their wild adventures.
Is our personal boredom, inconvenience, or discomfort not worth offering up, knowing it might protect even one vulnerable person? And the thing is, it isn’t one person; it’s a huge skyrocketing rate claiming hundreds of thousands of citizens that each individual either stimulates or subdues. I ask you to ask yourself, please, which will you be today?
Who could we be robbing of their precious time or goodbyes, and was it worth it? Sometimes it’s impossible to avoid. But don’t give up completely and assume it’s not worth trying. I find myself asking, and I know others are asking of their own loved ones too, was Nanny one of those unavoidable, inevitable deaths, or was someone’s carelessness, somewhere, what led my family to the reality we face today?
If it is somehow not worth sacrificing our freedoms to do recreational activities, rampantly spreading this virus and endangering this community more than is necessary, we will never beat this virus as a nation. It will beat us. It will do more of this: tearing loved ones from families, crushing anyone struggling with their health, and snuffing out whatever small humanities can be offered in death.
I wear my mask everywhere I go. I have become a hermit whenever I possibly can. I say no to beloved friends. I alienate beloved family members. I do so because I believe someday, someday soon, there will be time to celebrate. And more of us will be there, alive, to celebrate that day if we are patient.
My mother has done this too. Yet she was the one who bore the brunt of that lack of others’ sacrifices. Life isn’t fair. But we can try to make it just a little more fair for those who need it.
Nanny, Ma, and myself in our garden, still blooming today thanks to Ma’s devoted toiling.
Please. Do your part. People will die, yes. That’s inevitable. But we can protect some of our loved ones if we give it our best shot.
I leave you with a photo of Nanny being excited about our garden, my mom being distracted by my antics, and my young self, dressed in a purple dinosaur shirt handmade by Nanny, basking in both matriarchs’ love.