strangers

I think about them whenever I hear the new tallies.

I met the daughter last month during the last stocking-up run I made before joining others in staying at home for the next while. It was one of those seemingly innocuous encounters that suddenly takes on an urgency and depth that comes from being in distressing circumstances.

I had let her go ahead of me in the check-out line. We then had a few minutes when the cashier had to leave to change her drawer. She turned to thank me explaining that she was picking up a few things to take to her mother who lived in a residence for people living with Alzheimer's and had taken a fall recently. She'd just been moved to a nursing care facility the night before to recuperate after a brief hospital stay. It had been the only one with an available bed so here she was in an unfamiliar town and her mom in the second unfamiliar place in just a few days.

The center had instituted a necessary "no visitors" policy the day after her mom was admitted, informing the daughter that she'd be unable to enter again after having made sure her mom was settled. So now she could only drop off the necessities in her basket and not see her mother at all. This in the anxious days leading up to a state-wide stay-at-home advisory. It was possible to call in to keep in touch, but her mother was confused about how to use the phone so unable to call out on her own.

I secretly hoped the caregivers and staff could do more than help the older woman with her physical rehabilitation. She'd have even greater needs. Suddenly being in a new place with its own routines, with nothing and no one familiar around her, and aware enough to realize that...well, it was just the sort of disorientation that could have a compounding effect on her.

That was over six weeks ago as we were entering a new, more restrictive phase of this mushrooming public health crisis. Little did we realize, and I could already see and hear the effects on the wife/mother/sister/daughter. Our cashier returned and this stranger with whom I'd shared only a few spontaneous, personal minutes turned to apologize for sharing so much and thank me for listening. Thank you? It was a privilege.

I think of them often - mother and daughter - with no way of knowing how either of them is. I never learned that customer's name but I'd asked for her mom's first name before we parted, hoping to remember it. I wanted to make her real, feel her right there with us, and to acknowledge her. I can only hope she's not become an anonymous number in the rolling count over these subsequent weeks. She certainly is not anonymous to those who love her.

Terry. Her name is Terry.

simply this

My thoughts today are pretty simple. The feelings this evokes in me are not.

Stay Home if you can, Save Lives because you can.

Keep safe, everyone.

contact

I stood inside as a familiar face beamed at me through the storm door. A few grocery bags and a yellow-and-white spring bouquet lay on a wicker chair nearby just outside. We chatted for five minutes or so, then I waited until she'd left before fighting a battering raw April wind to bring it all inside.

Yesterday morning, I'd been moved by that friend's selfless offer to pick up anything I might need and leave it on my front porch. I'm not ill. Neither is she. Nonetheless I am minimizing what I call points of contact for my own well-being and protection as well as others', and entering Week 4 of a stay-at-home advisory. I'm taking my demographic situation seriously, including the necessary precautions.

Earlier I'd been contemplating just how to re-stock basic fruits and vegetables while reducing my chances of exposure to possible contagion. In other words, I'm in the same boat as everyone else. (That takes on a new meaning these days, doesn't it?) Then I got the inquiring text.

My initial and innate inclination to politely refuse assistance or put anyone out (or in harm's way) didn't last long. Hers was a genuine offer and I had a genuine need. A few hours later we were face-to-face mediated by glass still caked with briny scum after months of winter ocean storms. Uncharacteristically, I didn't notice that until afterwards. All I could see was my valiant friend not dressed nearly warmly enough to withstand the cutting wind...and those sunny flowers.

Beauty. Bounty. The feelings evoked by that brief encounter lingered: genuine amazement, overwhelming gratitude...and for the second day in a row, a comforting relief.

contagious

My regular mail carrier has kidded me about receiving next to no mail here for eight years. He knows I use a post office box but it doesn't stop his teasing...and I like that. Our informal connection and occasional banter over the years have also made it easier for me to take advantage of his willingness to take any outgoing mail that I leave clamped onto my mailbox these days.

He is sparing me the exposure I'd face venturing just the couple of blocks to our small post office and encountering anyone along the way. He's making my stay-at-home situation easier at what could be his own expense as an "essential" worker.
 
So today was another in our newly familiar routine. I heard him clump up the front steps and wrangle the one envelope from my trusty office supply pincer. It also gave me enough time to hustle to the door to catch him (at a safe distance) and thank him in person. He doesn't expect but certainly deserves it - along with his colleagues - many times over.

Halfway across the yard, he waved and tossed over his shoulder, "There's a package on your chair." Sure enough, and I'd have overlooked it there, safely tucked out of the gale force wind. I knew just what it was too.

A friend had offered and then followed through by making a couple of fabric face masks for me. I'd overcome my momentary hesitation and polite reluctance to say, "I won't stand on ceremony but say Thank you so much, and Yes, please." Done. And here they are three days later.

I've just thanked her again and am a bit surprised by the reaction a few bits of cloth are provoking in me. Not just any old scraps of course, one of these two custom-crafted masks is a luscious watercolor melange of cobalt, turquoise, and dappled forest greens, and the second a barely there aqua. Their beauty aside, what strikes me is how very soothing they are which is saying a lot about an accoutrement meant to conceivably save lives. 

And that's when I'm suddenly, surprisingly touched. Two people: one a casual albeit friendly acquaintance who knows little about me other than from an occasional return address or what I'm reading on the porch in summer; the other a close friend of twenty years who knows so much more. Nonetheless both of them are looking out for me in their own distinctly warm ways.

Then just as suddenly I recognize that the feeling washing over me is a symptom of being touched by their kindness. It's also relief.

and the list grows

This time pulling from the day I first wrote about what has largely gone unnamed but alluded to here - Covid-19, which needs no further explanation:

A rallying cry for good.

Persistence in the face of uncertainty.

Acquiescence in the face of necessity. 

Sustenance and succor in the face of both.

That was less than a month ago - March 10.

Now, quoting Chicago Mayor, Lori E. Lightfoot, Stay Home, Save Lives, although she says it even more persuasively here.