When the World Ended: A Covid Survival Story
On March 9, 2020, my friend Hannah was at my house. It was the first day of Spring Break, and as teachers, we were recovering from a particularly busy school year. It had been one of my best school years; my students were rockstars, and I was on my A-Game, but those years are sometimes even more draining than the rough years.
As we sat talking, she mentioned there would be a Cher concert in town the next night, and she thought there were still tickets available. So on a whim, Hannah, my wife, and I bought three last-minute tickets to see Cher in concert.
As we took our seats, we commented on how empty the arena was; there were more open seats than we expected–especially considering there weren’t many still listed on the ticket website. My wife, Sara–a physician and always the voice of logic–offhandedly mentioned that people may be scared of Coronavirus that had just made its way into our local news. At the time, we didn’t have the appropriate data to be scared or respectful or keep ourselves safe. This is what they mean when they say ignorance is bliss. This was our last night of normalcy, this was our last night, BC, before Covid, before our lives were completely upended.
A few minutes before the show started, Cher poked her head from behind the curtain and waved at the audience. The excitement that bubbled up in me took me by surprise, and instead of the subtle, composed, “look, it’s Cher,” I meant to say to Hannah and Sara, I fanboy-shouted “OHMIGOD IT’S CHER!” As I heard my own voice echo back to me in embarrassing peals from the arena, Cher looked up and waved at me, personally.
I don’t find that moment embarrassing these days. I will always treasure that wave. It was the universe’s final gift to me before everything went to shreds.
I took a picture at the concert — all our phones lit up. Nile Rodgers, who was touring with Cher, had just shared a touching story about a song he’d written with Daft Punk, “Get Lucky.” The song was about surviving cancer and making the best of what came next. And while Daft Punk’s version was a dance mix, Nile’s performance of it was a lovely ballad, somber and subdued. I was in awe at the unity of the audience, all waving our phones, all supporting Nile, and feeling harmony with each other. It often feels like the last time I felt unity with others.
The next day, we were informed that we would not be returning to school from Spring Break. I would never see those rockstar students again, save for a few Zoom classes that were sparsely attended.
My wife and I had just moved into a new house–bigger for hosting, having people over, being a social hub. We had scrapped our old furniture, intending to buy new things to fill our new house–everything we had was old, cheaply made, and mostly unsalvageable. So our house was bare, except for a small couch we were able to pick up at a local salvage store, and a too-small bed we had bought for the guestroom. Sara, being a physician, was a frontline worker and worked long hours. And I was left home alone, with just two dogs for company in a strange new, echoey house, in a strange new neighborhood, completely and totally isolated.
Isolation weighed on me like a boulder, sitting on my chest, keeping me pinned to my bed, and bringing me to scroll endlessly through Facebook, Instagram, and the newly popular TikTok. With each scroll, I hoped for some sense of connection, some false friendship to form. I was an extrovert with no way to feed my need for society. I experienced some of the darkest days of my life between the months of March and May 2020, and it quickly became apparent to my friends.
They scheduled regular video chats with me. They texted me nonstop. There were mental health checks and attempts at connection. Hannah, along with our friends Perri and Haley, came up with a plan to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its entirety together over Zoom. While I know they were also benefitting from this connection, it didn’t escape me that this was for my sake. They were watching me. I am grateful for those days, for the lengths to which they went to make sure I was okay.
When my wife would come home from long days of work, she’d look tired and bedraggled. Her normal optimism had been sucked dry, and she had been replaced by a shell of the woman she had been just a few months before. She had never experienced so much death in her medical practice. She had never had to tell so many people that their loved ones were gone, and it was taking its toll. Normally vibrant and bright, she looked gray, her eyes looked tired, her characteristics became flat.
We had nothing to give each other, and we had no one to help. I’m still not sure how we managed to claw our way out of the spiral we found ourselves trapped in, but somehow we did, together. A little worse for the wear–a few more gray hairs, some emotional scars–but we made it whole and together.
When we both went down with Covid ourselves in June of 2020, I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the other side. I don’t say this for dramatic effect. We were both really sick; spiking fevers higher than I’ve seen in adults. I had a migraine so severe and so long that I lost my vision for an entire day. Sara got so dehydrated that she couldn’t stop shivering and crying. Neither one of us wanted to call 911. We didn’t want to expose anybody else. Today, now that we’re on the other side, we know how ridiculous that sounds. But in the moment, having seen so many people die from exposure from this virus, we didn’t want to perpetuate the problem. So we did the only thing we could think to do–we sat together, put Supermarket Sweep on the TV in the living room (by now we had managed to finally buy furniture), and try to help each other not die.
We survived, and we picked ourselves up again. We ran away to a cabin for a few days before I started work at a new school district, learning to navigate life in a pandemic world. We were in school for a day before a hurricane ripped through Louisiana and disrupted life again. My wife’s family moved in with us for a month, because their town had been all but destroyed in the storms. I didn’t have a moment to myself, and if I found isolation tough, this constant state of hosting guests was worse. The month passed at a snail’s pace, and eventually, my wife and I prepared to reclaim some semblance of normalcy in our lives.
The universe, however, had other ideas. Two days after my in-laws left, my wife and I opened our home to a scared, fragile 2-year-old boy, bright-eyed and curious. We were given no specific timeline on how long he would be with us, and to us, it didn’t matter. Our job was to keep him safe and fed and to provide the best home for him that we possibly could until he was no longer in our care. It’s been two and a half years now, and he is a permanent part of our family. Our goal is still the same: keep him safe and fed, and provide the best possible home that we can for him.
It’s been three years since the world as I knew it ended. I am no longer teaching. I am now a parent. I published a bestselling book, and I’ve been through a lot of therapy. And somehow, against all odds, I survived. The world still feels weird, like I’m in some Mad Max reimagining of the world I knew three years ago.
