Paying Attention to What We Have
We started paying attention to COVID before the US news was going full force on reporting it. My partner, Adam, was watching the CDC reports and went out in late February to buy a few extra supplies; you know, some extra rice and beans and staples. Things we knew we would eat anyway. (He later kicked himself for not picking up the extra TP and disinfectant wipes). For myself, someone who has spent time in Mountain Search and Rescue and in Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams (for earthquakes), it seemed like a sensible, but non-over-reactive thing do to.
The last week of February my son realized he needed to take a medical leave for his spring semester of freshman year at college. It was a hard week, coaching him through it from afar, while letting him handle the “adulting” of the process. By March 2nd he had submitted the paperwork. I bought his plane ticket home for March 10th.
March 6th he got in a car accident going 70 mph, losing control of the car when we swerved to miss a pothole. The car flew down a median embankment, so tall that a crane would later have to lift his car out, smashing into trees as he landed. Trees hit the front, sides and top of his car. How he lived through it with barely scratch is truly a miracle. Remarkably, he was able, with assistance, to walk up the embankment when the paramedics got there (they couldn’t think of another way to get him up). It was early morning on the east coast where he was, just outside of Boston off on 95 S.
I woke up to 10 missed calls and Facetime attempts. It wasn’t until I could see his face on Facetime that I burst into tears realizing he was ok…before that was just too horrible to think about. He had a concussion (his 4th), a sprained shoulder, and bruised knee. Too inconceivably ok, considering the airbags didn’t even go off.
I sat in a random parking lot for more hours than I can count that Friday night March 6th. It was all too much. I literally didn’t know what to do. I was paralyzed. My good friend Tracey convinced me to jump on a plane the next day and be with my baby. She said, “You will never regret going.” Wise words. Despite his protestations that I didn’t need to (I bought the ticket before I called him to avoid that particular conversation) I got on a plane the next morning, March 7th.
It was so unbelievably great seeing him that Sunday morning when I finally arrived. To be able to put my arms around my 6”6’ baby (or maybe the other way around) and see and touch and know he was mostly ok.
Monday March 9th, we went to see the car.
That was when I really lost it. It was beyond totaled. Literally every side of the car had been damaged. No one had any business walking away from that car so unscathed. I am sure my grandmother was watching over him; he always was her “precious angel” and now she was returning the favor.
We packed up his room, said goodbye to his friends, and flew home on March 10th.
The weekend after we got home, March 14th, I came down with COVID. Who knows where I picked it up? I was so carefully using hand-sani, and wiping down every part of the plane, which was largely empty. My moms (who really needed them) had even sent us masks to wear on the plane. But that previous weekend in Massachusetts, we still went to Dunkin Donuts, got manicures, went out to brunch with my son and his girlfriend. People were still going about their business. It was the week before the earth stood still.
Though my version of COVID was “mild” it knocked me down for the better part of the month. One weekend I was having such a hard time breathing, I was genuinely afraid I might not wake up. I went to the doctor to get a chest x-ray because I was having a really hard time breathing. The doctor gave me the first inhaler in my life. I basically couldn’t get out of bed for weeks because of exhaustion.
I also worried every day about my moms in NYC, the epicenter. Both have severely compromised immune systems and had to go to the hospital every single weekday for 25 days through the month of March. Could there be a worse time? The building they went to for treatment was across the street from one of the first hospitals overflowing with COVID patients. Even though they wore masks and washed their clothes as soon as they got home, even though their friends lent them a car so they wouldn’t have to take Uber, and even though they got a dedicated spot in their building so that they wouldn’t have to let the valet people use it, just nothing could guarantee that they would be safe. No one is.
Despite these terrible events, there have been incredible blessings.
As a single mom of an only child, who was my whole world for so long, having him go off to college this year was a real blow. True, he had spent the years before individuating and a bit of “dirtying the nest” as my same wise friend Tracey pointed out. I didn’t see him much his last two years of high school. Which was good. Kids are supposed to have friends and girlfriends and want to be with them. But I missed him even before he left last fall.
When he came back this spring, he came back a much more responsible, even-keeled man, addicted to working out, doing yoga remotely with his girlfriend, trying hard to get a job, getting outside in the backyard, and even insisting on baking with his mom — one of our favorite mother/son activities.
This time with him has been an absolute gift. Any parent who has sent their children away to school can probably imagine what a gift it would be to have their kids come back for a period of time with such concentrated one-on-one time. Normally when kids come home for summer (I know I did this to my mom- Sorry Mom!) they stay out all the time with their friends. My son and I have spent more quality time and bonded more than we had in years. It was all so totally unexpected, and as such, a true gift that I am able to fully appreciate.
This COVID pause has in some ways been a super sweet time, coming together as family for a cause. As many people ask, who are you staying home for? We stay home for my moms. (Plus, we had the plague!).
We are blessed to have enough space for everyone in the house and a beautiful back yard, which helps take most of the tension off. In fact, we have less family fights and more family dinners than we ever had before. We instituted a practice of GEEO (Gratitude, Education, Exercise, Other) at dinner. Before COVID, we had a routine dinner gratitude practice of sharing 3 things we were all thankful for; but now we added education activities, exercise, and “other” (non-video game activity), so we could normalize and stress the importance of having some sort of a life together and individually during this pause.
This month (has it really has only been a month since shelter-in-place?!) has been horrible for the world in general and even for those close to me. I have a friend that lost both her parents within 5 days. Another friend whose father died in his house, suffering most likely from COVID, but sounding fine on the phone, only to die one hour later. I, myself, have moms who are in the most “at-risk” category if they were get it. Much about this time has been awful. And that’s just talking about the disease. Not including the economic fallout. Or governments navigating new political realities that the ACLU and our founders would have never imagined possible.
We had to postpone our wedding which we were weeks away from. While of course it wasn’t a hard decision (it wasn’t really a decision at all), it has devastated me mostly because we just don’t know, and can’t really conceive of, how or when we will return to a “normal” future with people flying in from all over the world for a wedding. Or whether the world will be safe enough for my moms to be there.
But I believe in appreciating what we do have in our lives, no matter what the circumstances. And finding purpose in those moments. Victor Frankl talked about this.
Even if it’s just the #clapbecausewecare every night at 7pm around the country for those healthcare workers on the front line, but specifically in the epicenter in NYC. Or the beautiful morphing on April 16th into breaking out in song with Ol’ Blue Eyes, singing, “New York, New York”. There is something beautiful in being united with a common sense of purpose as a human race; let’s work together to save lives, even at tremendous financial and personal loss, and particularly acknowledge those who are putting themselves at great personal risk to do so.
There is more than a small part of me that wishes this pause would stay, in a way. Our common humanity coming together, by staying apart, to protect those most vulnerable in our lives. Companies being more flexible overall about accommodating workers when they can. The environment getting a big sigh of relief of the manic destruction we do to it every day. The slower pace of my life not having to run around or travel like I was. More time for meditation, reading, reflection, writing and connection. The fact that I can have lunch outside with my partner and get multiple hugs every day from the boys.
Of course, I wish COVID had never happened. I wish so many people hadn’t died or gotten sick. I wish the economy hadn’t been decimated in such a short time, so irrevocably. But I’m not going to let it stop me from appreciating the gifts that I have gotten out of this, while allowing myself to feel the deep, deep grief I feel about so much suffering, both close and far.
