Remembering March 10, 2020: The Last Normal Day of My Life

Reflections on the one year anniversary of lockdown

One year. Three hundred sixty-five days. That’s how long it’s been since life felt normal.

I remember it so well, as if it was just a few days ago. And yet it feels like another lifetime. Another person’s memories. Another world, even.

On March 9th, 2020, I arrived at my sister’s house around 8:00 PM. I was going to sleep over because she and her husband were taking Baby Alex to have a procedure at the children’s hospital nearly 200 miles away, which meant they would have to leave at 4:00 AM in order to get there on time and needed someone to wake up with the other kids and get them to school on time.

If I remember right, there was a full moon. I remember walking into the house and yelling, “Hey, kids, did you see the moon?!” I grabbed the younger ones by the hand and led them to the big windows in the back of the house, passing my sister along the way, who gave me an annoyed look. I could tell she’d had a hard day and was hoping I would’ve arrived a little more quietly.

I immediately dropped the volume of my voice several notches as I lifted Brynn and then Keira up to the window to look at the moon. It was so beautiful.

Half an hour later, while I was helping get everyone to bed, I realized I was sick. I couldn’t believe it. It hit me so hard and so immediately. My nose began running like a faucet and I felt weak in my chest.

I wondered what I should do. Tell my sister, who might get upset that I’d come over sick (even though I hadn’t known I was sick until I’d already arrived)? Have her try to make other arrangements at the very last minute, potentially putting someone else at risk after I’d exposed everyone to my germs?

I made a decision in that moment to just power through it. Not tell her. Pretend everything was fine.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep in a strange bed that night, or that my oldest nephew, Ben, kept getting up in the middle of the night and doing god knows what in the bathroom while singing K-pop songs.

By the time my alarm went off, I knew I was in for a really hard day.

I prepared breakfast around 6:30 AM and Ben dutifully showed up on time for the first rotation of oatmeal. We talked for a while as he ate, then he got his backpack together and put on his jacket.

“Are you gonna be okay?” I asked. It was the end of his 8th grade year and he had just started bicycling to school.

“Of course,” he said.

“Do you remember that people often don’t look behind them when they’re pulling out of their driveways?”

He gave me his typical 13-year-old eye roll. “Yes, Auntie. I know.”

“Are the batteries in your tail light still working?”

Another eye roll. “Yes, Auntie. I’ll be fine.”

“You know this is a big deal for me. I literally cried when you started preschool and got on the bus for the first time. And now you’re all grown up and riding your bike to school…”

“Auntie, I’m gonna be late.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands up.

We hugged. He ducked out the door, snapping his helmet into place. Then I watched him from the window, my eyes teary. It seemed like just a short time ago that I’d first laid eyes on him after he was born. The little boy who made me an aunt was rolling into young adulthood so damn fast.

Kai trudged into the room behind me, bleary-eyed, his characteristic foul morning mood on full display. “Did you make my oatmeal yet?” he asked, through a squint, collapsing onto the couch.

“Don’t you dare lie down, you little monster,” I teased, hitting his arm. “Go sit in the kitchen and eat. We have to leave in an hour or we’ll miss Brynn’s bus.”

Somehow, I managed to get Kai, Finn, Keira, and Brynn fed without any of them noticing how sick I was.

I had the keys to my sister’s car, but we were ready early enough that we could walk to school and still get to Brynn’s bus stop on time.

Kai and Finn moaned and groaned, but I insisted. I suppose it would have been easier to drive, especially considering how sick I was, but I really need my daily walks and knew this would be one of my only chances to get fresh air and move my body.

I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be, however, to maneuver the baby buggy that 4-year-old Keira insisted on sitting in while I was constantly blowing my nose and adjusting my jacket as I developed the sweats. At one point, I had to stop, thinking I was going to faint, but realized I couldn’t do that. There were four children relying on me to get them through the day and there was no way I was going to leave them on a sidewalk while I succumbed to my illness.

Thankfully, we made it — and not only that, but we were the first ones there.

Brynn said, “I’ve never been first in line for the bus before!” and stood there proudly for the next fifteen minutes as each of her classmates arrived, all the moms commenting again and again, “Wow, Brynn is never the first one here!”

Even as I stood there blowing my nose, I felt a little proud that my sister would be pleased by how punctual I had been getting the kids to school.

I spent the next few hours in agony. Freed of most of my distractions, I collapsed on the couch back at the house, letting Keira have the remote control.

She flipped through dozens of shows on Netflix.

“Sweetie, could you please just pick one and stick with it? Auntie has a headache.”

“Okay,” she said. Then she found a show about trolls or fairies or some such thing and turned the volume up several more notches.

“Honey, could you please turn it down? That’s too loud for Auntie.”

“Okay,” she said, turning it down one notch. “Why are you just lying there?”

“Remember how I said I had a headache? I just need to rest for a little while.”

“Okay,” she said.

Five minutes later, she turned the volume up again.

“Sweetie,” I said, pulling myself up off the couch, “I’m gonna go lie down on Mama’s bed, okay? I’ll leave the door open, so if you need me, just come and get me. If you have an emergency, yell.”

“Okay,” she said, staring at the TV.

Stretching out on my sister’s bed felt overwhelmingly indulgent. I was so tired and so sick. I just needed to sleep for twenty minutes.

Five minutes later, I felt the mattress shift.

“Auntie?” Keira whispered from behind me. I could feel her little finger poking me. “I’m scared.”

“What? No. Why?” I murmured, annoyed.

“There could be monsters behind the curtains,” she said, sensibly.

I took a long breath, then agreed to come back to the couch. “But you have to turn down the volume, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

Back in the living room, volume down several notches, I started to nod off.

“Auntie!” Keira barked, suddenly.

I jerked awake, sitting up in a panic. “What’s wrong?!”

She looked at me with her round blue eyes and said, “I thought you were dead.”

“What?”

“You were barely moving.”

“Honey, I told you, I’m trying to take a little nap. Would you trust me that I’m okay and let me sleep for a few minutes?”

“Okay,” she said.

Five minutes later, I opened my eyes to find her leaning over me, poking my cheek. She whispered, “I couldn’t tell if you were breathing or not.”

My sister, her husband, and Baby Alex were home by the time I brought the kids back from school. I was flooded with dread when I saw their car in the driveway because I didn’t think I’d be able to hide my illness from them. I felt increasingly worse, knew how tired I looked, and I was still blowing my nose every 45 seconds or so.

But when I walked in the door and Alex came half-toddling, half-crawling to me, still woozy from the anesthesia he’d had, I felt filled with a sudden flood of energy.

I picked him up and hugged him, but I could tell he wanted to run around and be with his siblings after a day away, so I let him go immediately. I was anxious to go home and get into bed, but something told me I should stay for a while.

My sister and her husband sat on the couch for a while with Kai and Keira. I went into the dining room with the other four, who wanted to show me their crafts and ask for help with their homework. Alex crawled and walked around the table dozens of times, poking his siblings, taking their pencils, laughing and rubbing his sleepy-looking face.

Finally, at some point, he came to me and tugged at my pants. I picked him up and he immediately melted against me, resting his head on my shoulder. I stood there rocking him in my arms and stroking his back, assuming he was going to fall asleep, but 40 minutes later, he was still awake, still playing with my hair.

At some point, my sister yelled, “Why haven’t I heard Alex? Do you guys still have him?”

“Yes,” Ben called. “He’s with Auntie.”

She peeked her head in and saw us, rolled her eyes teasingly, and said, “Oh my god, you two.”

I didn’t leave for another hour, soaking up every second I could with Alex because I knew it would be at least a week before I’d get to see him again, thanks to my illness.

It breaks my heart to think of that afternoon now. It wasn’t a week until I saw him again. It was four months.

The day after I left was Alex’s first birthday, and I’d told my sister about my illness by then. Since she wasn’t throwing a party, she just asked me not to come over and had a little get-together with our mother, instead.

The very next day, March 12th, our state went into lockdown.

How does one even process everything that has changed over the course of this year? How can I even say how much I miss the way things used to be? Those words don’t even begin to capture how the past year has affected me.

I remember taking self-portraits early on, to help myself process my feelings. At the time, I thought the pandemic would last a couple of months. Maybe four. I didn’t understand what was coming.

I didn’t date, as I had hoped. I lost the ability to visit with my father whenever we wanted. I lost the ability to visit with most of my friends. My sister and the kids moved away.

Somehow, life kept going even though everything had also stopped.

Little Alex is about to turn two. I haven’t seen him in five months. I’ve seen my dad twice in as much time, and my two best friends once.

I still look back on that day, March 10th, as the last normal day I remember. The last day I left my house before the lockdown less than 48 hours later.

A year later, life is still far from normal and probably will be for a long while. I’m exhausted, just like most people. And I sometimes feel so bored that I fear I’m going to burst out of my body.

What, I cannot help but wonder, does the next year hold?

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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