My mother is washing her vases. She has about three dozen of
them lining the tops of her kitchen cabinets. Her best friend knows to text me if
she ever goes over there and finds them cluttering the counters, waiting like SUVs
queuing at the car wash to spray down with suds. We both understand what it
means. It’s her signature cry for help. Stress abounds and she’s grasping for
something to control. Her world may be crumbling around her, but at least the
vases will be spotless.
Me? I make soup. Something about the methodical therapy of
chopping vegetables, the smell of a mirepoix simmering on the stove infuses me
with a sense of domestic accomplishment and I can momentarily forget the sky is
falling. Okay, that’s bullshit. Usually I rip open a bag of peanut M&Ms. My sister purges. It’s really quite
impressive, considering on an average day her house looks like something out a
of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. If things get really bad, she’ll need
to move onto my closets. Her sense of catharsis would be off the charts.
But, we all do it in some form or another. Bite our nails. Stress
clean. Binge reality tv. Drink. I have a friend who alphabetizes her spice
cabinet. Another rearranges her bedroom furniture. An old neighbor used to run
a twelve-mile loop whenever she felt overwhelmed. I know, eye roll.
Two weeks ago, I was still skeptical. Maybe it’s more
accurate to say I was living in cozy denial while secretly envisioning every
possible apocalyptic scenario of how this pandemic was going to play out. If I
accounted for it on my list of atrocious outcomes, it couldn’t possibly come
true. Could it? Either way, my
stash of peanut M&Ms was still unscathed.
In my almost forty years, it seems as though tragedy often
delivers the strange courtesy of occurring as a surprise – that way we humans can’t
perseverate on it in advance. But, something changed this week. Something
shifted in me as I read the articles by epidemiologists and scientists and mathematicians,
scrutinized the news updates and reflected on the charts demonstrating how
social distancing can flatten the curve, easing the burden on our hospitals and
medical staff and effectively, save lives. I watched the incidence numbers tick
up exponentially in other countries, stared at photos of the Duomo at midday,
forsaken, desolate, the only sign of life evidenced by the smattering of
confused pigeons. I began to digest the reality that this microbial adversary
was indeed coming, the virus—the proverbial ant that brings a giant to his
knees.
In fact, it was already here.
In Illinois, the schools are now closed, my fridge is stocked,
and our order of watercolor paints and Frozen II Legos arrived without delay. (Thank
God for Amazon Prime.) We went house-bound t-minus 48-hours ago and we’re in it
for the long haul. However, just yesterday on the evening news, I witnessed a
slew of party-goers clutching beer bottles, decked out in green, beads draping
from their necks, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in mass crowds. I got angry. I
thought, are these individuals so obtuse, so divested, that they truly don’t care about
anyone over the age of seventy?
I hear people politicizing the outbreak, claiming that it’s a
democratic hoax, propaganda being fed to a panicking public, and I’m left
grappling to understand how an international health emergency came to be regarded
as a partisan issue. To me it’s on par with attributing cancer to a blue state
or a red state or arguing that a virus prefers a bleeding liberal over a
staunch republican as its gracious host.
I know we are all collectively grateful this virus doesn’t seem
to pose a fatal threat to our children. But, I feel the need to ask the
question, what if it were the youngest members of our society, our toddlers, preschoolers,
and preteens dying at a rate of 3% around the globe from this pandemic? What if
doctors were being forced to triage our first graders, to decide which child
gets a ventilator or a hospital bed? I can pretty much guarantee Chicagoans
wouldn’t be out, carousing in the streets, clanging together pints of Guinness.
Don’t our mothers and nanas, our dads and grandpas, not to mention those in our
society who are immunocompromised, deserve the same reverence?
My mom and I spoke on the phone this morning and before we
hung up, we both agreed that it’s a blessing that my dad is no longer here. We
didn’t say it to be callous, but after years of fighting to keep him alive with
less than 15% heart functioning, it’s a relief not to be worried about him
during this crisis. I think about all the families with elderly relatives in
nursing homes and loved ones in hospitals around the globe. How terrifying it
must be to live with that vulnerability every day, the fact that they have no
control over an invisible threat that would be catastrophic. They must rely on the
goodness, the generosity and moral obligation of strangers to socially distance,
so that their beloveds may be granted a fighting chance.
It’s true that it goes against human instinct to retract in
a time of crisis, to abstain from reaching out a hand, offering a hug or seeking
solace in someone’s touch. And yet, I’m buoyed by the resilience I’m seeing on
local social media sites and though my calls and chats with friends. People are
posting academic e-lessons and sharing ideas for safe outdoor scavenger hunts
and shamrock searches. I’ve spoken to my
sister and brother more in these past few days than I did during the entire
month of February.
“Let’s touch base every day,” my sister says and I hear the
same innate need to connect reflected in her voice.
“Yes, 100%,” I answer. “It’s something to look forward
to.”
My husband told me the other night that he overheard our
five-year-old talking to her Barbie mermaids in the bathtub. King Triton had
lined up all of his daughters and was interviewing them one at a time,
inquiring if any had contracted the coronavirus. One brave mermaid spoke up and
admitted she had been sneezing and was bleeding from her tail. Later, as I was collecting
the damp towels off the tile, I spotted the lone mermaid squatting in the
corner of the tub, quarantined from the rest.
She’ll be fine though. She’s young and healthy with a
two-inch waist and an enviable frock of thick magenta hair. Besides, I’m confident
they have some solid Netflix programming under the sea. All this to say, if my
preschooler can figure it out, please, respect the call to socially distance.
As much as you can. It’s quite literally saving lives.
And if that isn’t enough of an incentive, I promise when
this is nightmare is all over to visit your home and adulate you with
compliments on how impossibly clean you keep your vases.
