We are working tirelessly now to get back to normal but then again we realize that there is no more normal. Our world has forever changed and how we live in this new reality is where we find ourselves.
It is tempting to assume that the pressure from the pandemic is off even though we read that there are over 60,000 new cases a day. Maybe we do not have to use the mask all the time, maybe we do not have to sanitize everything we touch. Someone high-fived me yesterday and we laughed about it. I had my haircut for the first time in five months and it felt good to have my head shampooed and massaged. It felt great to have human contact.
However, it is too easy to become nonchalant. The following tribute from Lucy reminds us that the danger of this pandemic is very much in our face:
A loss
Tricia and I met 50 years ago this summer. She is a beautiful and charming English girl who met my American friend Susie when she took her junior year at Goldsmith College in London. The following summer the three of us set off on a cross county adventure that would cement a lifelong friendship.
Sadly, Susie died ten years after that trip. Tricia and I shared the loss and forged a new bond. We visited each other often swapping countries and adventures and enjoying watching our children became the people they wanted to be.
Our next trip had been planned for the first weekend in May in New York City. Our husbands found common ground and I loved being with her whenever there was a chance. The emails began early in March with the news that no trip was possible this year and would need to be postponed. Then came the call that they both were diagnosed with COVID 19. She survived. He did not.
He was only 66. Fit and no underlying conditions. He should have survived. One of the horrific aspects of this virus is that there can be no funerals. No chance to stand next to her and share her grief. Joachim was handsome, kind, smart and adoring of my friend. She could not have found a better mate.
I feel lucky that I only know a few people who have been diagnosed and they have survived. Others wonder if they had it early on but few symptoms. Death changes everything.
On our shores, in our lifetime, there has been AIDS and 9/11 that created fear and disruption and death. There was a time when HIV threatened to overrun us all. But the greatness of Diana, Elton John and others led the way to show that transmission was far more complicated than a handshake or a hug. Nothing derailed our lives so completely as what we are experiencing today.
COVID 19 has taught me that I am not nearly as brave as I would like to be. Or thought I was. Many of us wake up every day, with a mental and physical check list of possible symptoms. Death becomes a possibility for all or any of us by simply taking a trip to the grocery store. So we shoulder only – like the gallant ladies of Philadelphia in 1918 pandemic. A hundred years from now, what will be those same iconic images of this year 2020? (get some of those pictures)
There are many phrases that echo through our emails to one another and our exchanging of favorite social media posts. Here are a few I like:
I miss the world.
If you can’t beat fear, do it scared.
If now is not the time to appreciate what we have, when is it?
Stay strong, stay brave, stay safe.
Let’s keep our spirits up. Ciao
Lucy and Claudia