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Life goes on – imperfectly- during coronavirus restrictions

Notes from the home front in the time of coronavirus:

My new friend Charlie and I were together because he is the physical therapist for my bum leg. He told me this sad, sad story:

“For nine years I have been entering a lottery for tickets to The Masters (golf tournament).

“This year I won.”

•••

A woman who helps us around the house told me that she has three children, two daughters and a son.

She spoke with a soft voice and soft eyes. Her youngest daughter was adopted as an infant when she was just 3 days old.

The daughter, now grown, was a flight attendant on a New York to Paris run, but switched to domestic flights when the coronavirus came a-knocking.

“She is afraid all the time,” said her mother.

“She tells me that she constantly wants to get away from people and take a shower,” her mother said. “I tell her to triple her doses of Vitamin C and keep flying.”

The woman’s husband deals in real estate, but has bowed to coronavirus by moving his business into their home.

“He did it because he doesn’t want to bring the virus to me, since I work with people all the time.”

Husband and wife heroes — and their daughter as well.

•••

My wife and I live in an elder facility, which confronted COVID-19 in phases, a system I am not sure was planned, but just happened.

First to go was to dining-room service. All meals are served in our apartments. Then they started taking our temperatures and blood oxygen level twice a day. Next, they banned visitors. Now we are not allowed to leave, under penalty of more testing if we cheat.

Two days ago I went into a lounge and found a maintenance worker wearing a mask. Seeing me, he pointed to the mask and joked, “Phase 10.”

The next day not a single employee was masked. I asked why.

“We ran out,” the lady at the front desk said.

After one day.

Does the president know about us?

•••

My son is an administrator at a large university. He is working from home in what he describes as his busiest time of the academic year, amusing himself and his wife during work breaks by keeping tabs on a herd of wild deer that emerges from a woods each day to dine in a meadow, which doubles as his backyard.

He even feeds them, buying food from  a large tractor store that is deemed a necessary business by the state because it provides food for farm animals.

•••

With the churches closed, I am writing brief homilies for the Sunday edition of a daily newsletter.

It is a new field for me, but I have a store of real stories from my years as a writer and as a human being who loves other human beings.

•••

The president is thinking of opening up the country before the virus has done with us.

Bad news. We adapt. We need to be safe.


Dan Warner is a veteran newspaper writer and editor.



from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2wH4Ixb
Life goes on – imperfectly- during coronavirus restrictions Life goes on – imperfectly- during coronavirus restrictions Reviewed by Admin on March 31, 2020 Rating: 5

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