April 7, 2020

It’s not a good time to be watching the news. The stories of people losing loved ones to COVID-19 can have me sobbing like a baby. Parents, like, me leaving their families too quickly. Some are frontline medical workers, some are educators, some are bus drivers that an idiot coughed on. They were here and then they were gone. Most got a test too late, not that there’s much help that’s available once you slide down the hole. I have a very old friend who is on a ventilator in a hospital room in Atlanta and we’re just hoping the wind shifts direction and blows him back to his family. So turning on the TV at the moment is sure to remind you that the glass is half empty as it’s being used to waterboard you.

I started this blog in late 2014 because I was inspired by John Lennon’s decision to leave work and become a stay-at-home father for his son, Sean. I wanted to give the same kind of intensive care to our daughter, Cozy. Cozy, 5, is now the same age as Sean was when John was killed by a gunman in front of their New York home. In numerous interviews, people ask Sean Lennon what he remembers about his dad and he honestly replies not much. That answer shakes me to the core. I’ve gotten to meet Sean a few times (and so did Cozy, in the womb), and I always wonder how his life would have been different if he had gotten two or three more years with his fab father.

The specter of death seems very real today, watching the rising death count from coronavirus. (Remember on February 26th, when Donald Trump said that in a couple of days, the virus would disappear, “like a miracle”?) You can tell me that I’m statistically more likely to be killed by a falling Comcast satellite than to die of the novel coronavirus, but that’s not going to register, especially since there’s a pretty good chance I’m already carrying it. My persistent cough worries me. There’s no fever but the “science” on what this thing is seems to change daily. We certainly don’t have any leadership on the issue from our president, just daily campaign rallies where the science is attacked along with journalists and handy scapegoats (“China!”).

The rate at which people go from fine to dead, body stacked in a refrigerated truck, is horrifying. The Detroit bus driver who went on social media to complain about coughing passengers was dead in 11 days. And like the Class of 2020 high school seniors who will never be in high school again, no prom, no hugging your favorite teacher, there’s little chance to get your house in order and say goodbye. If you’re lucky, you’re isolated from all humans, including your family, with a ventilator tube down your throat. People have brought family members to emergency rooms “just to be safe” and then never seen them again.

I’m not obsessed with death. Other than being over 50, I’m not particularly “high risk,” but what does that even mean? I’m the family member who makes the supply runs to the grocery store, where two employees tested positive. I touched an avocado to see if it was ripe. Then I touched my face. I’m probably gonna die. It’s been nice knowing you. When I was 7, I stole a piece of Brach’s candy from a Piggly Wiggly. There, I said it.

I do worry about leaving my family in the lurch if I succumb to this thing. I know it’s fashionable and all, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth, and I think my wife would be pissed off if I got COVID-19 after running to the store because I suddenly had a mad craving for Pop Tarts. I think she actually likes me and appreciates my ability to, um, well, do something. God, I don’t even know. I do know my daughter thinks pretty highly of me and I’d prefer to stick around long enough for her to learn that I made some life changing decisions so this wonderful family could exist. Am I the only one who is thinking about how all these fragile relationships turn out if I become a part of the daily corona body count? I mean they can’t even have a funeral for dead me. I require a wake with multiple drunken awkward moments! But I was just cremated along with all the other wheezers. Poof.

For those of us that have wrestled with depression, there’s a real need to constantly monitor our mental states. The moment it really hit me was the first time I had to wear a cloth face mask in public. I sat in the grocery store parking lot trying to get my courage up to don a cute face covering that one of our crafty neighbors had made. I knew it was the responsible thing to do, maybe even saving lives (I had touched the avocado, after all), but it felt like I was giving into the fear. Once inside the Fred Meyer, mask in place, I saw all the other depressed faces hidden behind their masks. It felt like an awful version of The Handmaid’s Tale. The sinking feeling that this was normal now had me wanting to go lay down in the bread isle and cry. What started out as kind of funny (“Why the hell is everyone buying toilet paper?”) is now centered around saving the lives of family members. On a beautiful spring day, it can seem so dark.

Those of us that don’t die, will get through this. And maybe we’ll have that promised renaissance afterwards. I just wish we had an actual leader to help guide us through the darkness instead of a self-serving madman. I guess it’s up to us. I guess it’s always been up to us. Let’s live. At least until we can have funerals again.