Don't Even Think About It

6/4/20

Two of my sister’s three daughters, Grace and Maria, started jobs at a summer camp in Tennessee in mid-May.  Within a week, they were sent home sick when they, along with 35 of the 70 campers and staff, tested positive for Covid.  The girls drove 13 hours to get back to my sister’s home in Virginia.  The other 68 traveled to homes scattered across the country.   

“Pretend they’re dead,” one doctor said.  He meant: zero contact while the two girls quarantined at my sister’s home.  Ellie drops food at their bedroom doors and picks up their bags of trash.

   

The youngest daughter, Maria, texts my sister throughout the day: “I’m sick of fruit and vegetables. Can’t you give me something else?” Both girls seem to be over the worst, but Maria suffers from the isolation.  She and my sister video chat often. This is the only way Ellie can see her daughter’s faces. 

The girls told my sister to keep their covid status a secret. “Why?” I asked Ellie yesterday, in our own video chat. “It’s not like it’s some kind of shameful curse.” 

“You’d be surprised,” she said.  “I’ve had people hang up when I told them.  As if they could catch it through the phone lines.” 

Ellie doesn’t listen to the news but hears the rumors circulating: It’s no worse than the flu, you can’t get it unless someone purposely breathes in your face for five minutes, it’s simple to cure with hydroxychloroquine and Vitamin C, etc. etc.  I tell her about the young people, plus doctors and nurses and EMTs and grocery store clerks, who were perfectly healthy and died anyway.  I want to alarm her enough to take the threat seriously. 

“Well,” she says finally.  “I’m not scared of getting it.  I’ll either get better ... or not.” Pause.  “If I die, I won’t care---because I’ll be dead.” 

I laugh. “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling myself.”   

“But if Tony dies ….” Tony is her husband of over 30 years.  She doesn’t complete the thought.  

“We’ll be okay,” she insists.  “Whatever happens.” 

A brief silence. She continues: “When Bill [our stepfather] died, before I knew he died, I felt him … it was so clear, like he was sitting in that chair, right in front of me.” 

  

“Yeah,” I said, “that doesn’t surprise me.” When my friend Sarah died at 40 of ovarian cancer, I felt her presence for more than a year.  When my cat Jasper was killed by a dog, I saw some rippling energy peel off from his body and dissipate into the air. 

“Grace said she heard him say something … .” 

I think of my brother-in-law, who has just died: Will he come to me in a dream, say a few words, tell me everything will be all right?  

I try not to think of my sister, and the threat to her life.