The last time I saw my mother, she was alive.
I feel like this should be the first line of the winning entry in a pandemic essay contest.
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Who’s to say an unintended consequence of this pandemic will be long-term care residents, unvisited and forgotten, unable to feel the love and touch and energy of loved ones? Who’s to say they don’t just give up and die sooner?
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What if this is all meant to happen? What if this virus takes my mother down its swirling tornado of doom? Dad still fighting it in his endless quest to disprove everything: aging, medicine, his own fragile state, driving, independent living, outliving threat after threat, like Methuselah.
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And now in this pandemic, the bland sameness of days, tedious passage of moments and days and weeks and months where the groundhog sees his shadow day in and day out, the painful lesson of being in the now, just as my mother has lived every day for the past five years. Life measured in moments. The passage of time different here.
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I send my parents care packages and cards as if they were kids away at summer camp. Their delight as satisfying as my own upon receiving letters airmailed from home when I lived abroad.
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After they divorced, both parents lived on separate islands. Now, nestled in their respective care homes, they share opposing views of the Bay. Even if I lived down the street it would still be a world away, lockdown or not, for mom. Even in my childhood she was distant.
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I am faced with the growing possibility of a double funeral. Or maybe triple. Who would plan them if I die? Will anyone be left to attend, virtually or not?
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Pandemic Obituary: A time for remembrance will be found in the future.
Pandemic Memorial: The Celebration of Life service has been postponed until it is safe to congregate again.
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