PANDEMIC REFLECTIONS

School Weirdness, ‘The Tiger King,’ COVID and Me

An over-thinking writer’s observations

CW: COVID, politics, and death

In 2019, I started getting excited for 2020

I was making all sorts of plans for jokes on social media about 20/20 vision. 2020 was going to be a clear-sighted year, a chance to focus on new goals. By February, I was reading about the new virus, and an old friend and I exchanged concerns.

His politics are completely dissimilar to mine. A libertarian, he tended to listen to President Trump. Not me. Yet, about this new virus, the Corona Virus, we agreed.

“Doesn’t look good,” he said, “I think we may be in trouble with this one.”

I worried. With asthma and a history of picking up the worst viruses, I didn’t want COVID.

I got H1N1 in 2009 from one of my high school students. I was taking money at a school dance, and he came through the line. He was flushed and said he was sick. I put the back of my hand to his forehead and said, “Go home, you’re burning up.”

He said, “I can’t. If I don’t come to this dance, my girlfriend will break up with me.” Then he disappeared. Within three hours, I was horribly ill. Then came the pneumonia,

Anything that endangers my lungs is trouble for me. I was afraid of this coronavirus.

In March 2020, the high school where I work closed its doors

The students went home, as teachers struggled to assemble online school. The librarian and I worked to assemble carts of books for students to check out. Math textbooks. Language Arts. Social Studies. Spanish coursework. German textbooks. Carts and carts stood in one of the buildings.

Parents drove through the loop, and we delivered the textbooks and course materials. It was a big logistics fiasco, but damn, it was so well organized. The associate principal flew around the vacant school — which housed ,1500 students — on a hoverboard. She said she intended to stay fit.

We teachers and librarians worked for days to distribute, our hearts pounding hard as we wore masks around each other. Masks! we were wearing masks! And hand sanitizer was everywhere.

My fear of other people went off the charts. The first time I went into my hometown grocery store, where the checkers know my name and I know theirs, I put on two masks. Would the old lady pushing her cart infect me with COVID? I saw she’d forgotten to pull her mask up. Should I say something?

No. I moved to a different aisle. I heard someone say to her, “You need to pull your mask up! Your mask isn’t on! Pull it up!”

Early days of the pandemic were about masks, hand sanitizer, and — of course — toilet paper. My friends sewed masks with pretty fabrics and lots of layers. I purchased them and supported their efforts. My favorite mask is a Ruth Bader Ginsburg model, black with white lace on the bottom.

The toilet paper hoarding was pretty strange. With enough rags and soap, you can keep yourself clean. My husband and I never hoarded toilet paper. There were worse things to worry about other than keeping your backside wiped.

We watching the news nonstop. It reminded me of when 9/11 happened. We couldn’t stop watching the news.

After days of statistics, scientists, and the emerging politicization of the new virus, my husband and I — both teachers — were convinced we were in deep shit.

Not just as a nation. As a world.

President Trump made vague claims that 100K could potentially die. My faith in him was already nonexistent. How could I believe him? Who could I believe?

Certain voices made me more confident. I found the World Health Organization helpful, even as my Republican relatives began criticizing them nonstop. I believed Anthony Fauci, as the Youtube videos debunking his motivations began circulating on social media.

My favorite sources tended to be charts, numbers, and figures presented by researchers. The Johns Hopkins COVID information was believable and well presented. I interpreted numbers myself, and made decisions based on maps, trends, and rising cases in various states.

At one point, my family member in Arizona boasted that the coastal states had the problem, not them. Within not much time, she had COVID. Arizona was now in the game.

Visiting the Johns Hopkins site this morning, I see that they’ll stop reporting about the virus on March 10th.

Thank you, Johns Hopkins. Thanks for everything. Your numbers aren’t comforting, but they have helped me understand the virus and its devastation. This morning’s tally includes this information about confirmed cases and deaths.

Back to 2020: Politics and COVID continued to heat up from our television

The kaleidoscope shifted, and images come to me. Even now, the chronological order is confused, but I remember the moments.

Jay and I watched as nursing home residents died.

As people applauded from their balconies around the world for health care workers, we watched.

When COVID-positive President Trump drove around in a limo and waved at throngs, exposing his driver to COVID, we shook our heads.

When Deborah Birx stood by and remained silent as President Trump suggested something like bleach could clean the lungs, our jaws dropped.

American culture was at an all-time low, as people argued online about The Tiger King, a series that came on during the pandemic. Binge-watching shows on Netflix and other providers became a pandemic activity that was safe, and we fell into the couch, exhausted from news and worries.

Debates about the Tiger King’s nemesis Carol Baskin and her alleged involvement in her husband’s murder were as nonsensical and confusing as the debates about the origins of COVID.

We were in a strange world now, in which safety existed nowhere, and our faith in human intelligence was shaken to the core.

What do writers do when they experience a devastating experience?

You know what they do. They write. One of my early pieces for the platform included a brief essay about my husband’s ex, a sweet woman named Peggy.

Peggy worked in a little office at an electric company, and during the first days of COVID, no one at her office took the virus seriously. She became very ill, and I was upset.

While some may find it weird that my husband’s ex and I were friends, we worked hard to build a strong family with her and her husband. With my husband’s teenage children in the mix, it was crucial we built a loving environment for the whole group.

I’ll never know if Peggy had COVID. It was early days, and hospitals were only testing people who were terribly ill. She was sick, but didn’t need a ventilator. Time passed, and she recovered.

Then, the worst.

In October 2020, she died — a shocking, tragic and fast death.

Again, we’ll never know, but facts are facts. COVID happened in 2020, and she died that year. Last month, her husband — who never got over losing her — died in January 2023. After a few years of depression, he’d had enough.

Her husband, a dear and kind man who put lipstick on his wife so she’d look pretty for Jesus, was gone.

That’s all I can say about COVID. I think it’s enough.

Here are a collection of stories I wrote about COVID and our family losses.