Our New Days of Intimacy

By Mary Lou Fulton

One of the few bright spots in this crisis is a new kind of intimacy.

Coronavirus has given me a chance to reset the clock and rekindle friendships without having to explain or apologize for why I’ve been absent. We dive right in, crashing through the veneer of pretending we’re okay and getting to the truth of our lives right now.  

One friend is now home-schooling three kids while the business she runs with her husband is collapsing.

Another is caring for two elderly parents, one in his 80s who has already been told by his doctor to be very careful because his age and frail health means he’s not likely to get a ventilator should there be a shortage in the hospital.

A friend just lost her job at a restaurant and doesn’t have money to pay the rent in April. She has another job opportunity, but it would involve interacting with a lot of people every day. Is the risk to her health worth it?

We’re saying the things to each other that we once reserved for funerals. I admire you so much. You’re strong and resilient. Your family is lucky to have you. You’re an amazing mom and daughter. I have said and heard “I love you” more times in the last 10 days than I have in the last 10 years.

With so many people working and communicating from home, we’re also pulling the curtain back on the lives of those we’ve only known from a distance. As people take turns speaking on Zoom, my attention wanders to the bookshelves behind them, a small stain on the wall, the pattern on the bedspread (Wonder Woman!), a child’s voice in the background. I like this fuller, more human, less filtered view.

I especially love that musicians are singing to us from where ever they are. On the first day of spring, I watched Brandi Carlile sing Joni Mitchell’s beautiful Little Green, occasionally hesitating for a split-second when she wasn’t sure about the next chord.  

I listened to Steve Winwood playing the blues on an old upright piano, with his spotted dog asleep on the sofa behind him.

I couldn’t hold back the tears as I listened to Paul Simon sing American Tune, a wistful meditation on life’s struggles. He stood outdoors in front of a backdrop that looked like the skin of a blue leaf, just him and his guitar, and the birds sang along.

We’re all laid bare in this moment. No makeup. Vulnerable, afraid, overwhelmed and perhaps more honest with ourselves and each other than we’ve been in a long time. This is one thing that I hope won’t go back to “normal” after these days of sorrow and struggle are behind us.

Life on lockdown with my mom

By Mary Lou Fulton

The coronavirus crisis really hit home as I read media accounts of Italian doctors forced to play God in overwhelmed hospitals.  Younger, healthier people with the virus received treatment - a bed, oxygen, respirators.  Older people might just be left to die. 

My mom is one of those people who could get written off. She’s 78 and on kidney dialysis that she performs nightly at home. Her immune system is shot, and it took her six months to recover from a terrible bout of shingles just two years ago.

So if she’s going to stay feisty and flirty and ready to play the slots when the casinos reopen, we can’t roll the dice.

I’ve told my mom it isn’t safe for her to leave her Boyle Heights home except for doctor appointments. A week ago, I quit my full-time job, intending to start a new chapter focused on writing and music making. Now my job is protecting us from the virus.

I’m mindful that any move I make could bring infection into her home, so I have new routines. When I’m out, I wear gloves and carry wipes to clean door handles and shopping carts. I get to the grocery store when it opens, hoping to avoid crowds. I’ve read that heat can kill the virus, so I toss my hoodie into the dryer before going into the house.

Once inside, I wash my hands and wipe down what I’ve touched — doorknobs, a light switch, my phone, the credit card I used at the store.

As each day brings more restrictions, I’m thinking ahead. Instead of waiting a few weeks for my mom’s next dialysis-supply delivery, I drove 90 minutes to the warehouse to pick up as many supplies as I could fit in my Kia Soul.

I take my mom’s temperature twice a day, and mine, too. So far, so good. But that could change, and if it does, my mom’s odds aren’t so good. I have Facebook friends who say they aren’t worried because if you’re younger than 50, there’s just a 1% chance the virus will kill you, based on Chinese data. For my mom and others in their 70s, it’s almost one in 10. For folks in their 80s, it’s 18%.

So I’m asking the young and healthy to think about the ripple effect of every choice they make. Stay home, keep your distance, reduce the spread of the virus so that hospitals will have the capacity to care for older people instead of pushing them aside. 

You can count on me to protect your mom. Will you help me protect mine?

First published in The Los Angeles Times:  Dispatches from the pandemic: Love on hold, fragile parents and reluctant heroism

Through the Looking Glass

By Barbara Raymond

Until this week, I thought my dad’s most surreal birthday was eight years ago.  My mother was lying in her hospice bed, surrounded by my dad, their four children, two college-age granddaughters, one grandson, two Dobermans and a cat.  We ate birthday cake and played music.  Through the bedroom window, we could see snowflakes and pear blossoms.  Mom passed shortly after midnight, taking care not to die on Dad's birthday. 

A few days ago, Dad turned 82, and once again there are snowflakes and pear blossoms.  But this year, I'm on the other side of the window, outside in my boots and hat, looking at him and pasting a smile on my face.  Dad is alone, in isolation, as our family protects him from the coronavirus.  This may be his strangest birthday of all. 

Over the past few years, I’ve made a number of decisions that prioritize being close to both my dad and my 6-year-old nephew, who share the name William.  My brother, my dad and I live next door to each other on adjoining properties.  In this way, I can help to raise the kid and also help out Dad.  It’s a beautiful place and almost always fun to have three generations of our family so close together.

My sister-in-law is an emergency room nurse in the largest ER in Northern California.  She is, as the Marines would say, the tip of the spear.  While before I had a sneaking suspicion she had superpowers, today I know for sure she is a hero. Early this week she worked a long shift in the hospital's COVID pod under battlefield conditions, with reused masks and subpar (read nonexistent) personal protective equipment.

Given her work, we face a new and different calculus.  We agree that my brother and sister-in-law need to keep their distance from my dad.  And we have to keep me in shape to make the food runs for dad, and possibly for them if they become ill, so they will stay away from me too.  But the 6 year-old?  I usually shower him with affection.  Now I peer at him and wonder if he is carrying the virus as he plows down the hill in the fresh snow.   After being denied access to my house, he asks, “I’m not sick, am I?”  He doesn’t understand the rules of a quarantine.  Nor do I.

Every year since the little guy was born, we've taken a picture of the two Williams on my dad's birthday.  Not this year.  Instead, we take turns at Dad's window, making our solitary pilgrimages to smile, wave and then return to living next door to each other, in isolation.

Photo by Alicia Berardi/Ivy Photography