Warning: Pandemic May Include Side Effects

This pandemic killed my mother.

No, she didn’t have the coronavirus, but I do believe the stress and loneliness of isolation killed her. She had pulmonary fibrosis, chronic pneumonia, and a smorgasbord of other health issues including a previous bout with stage four cancer and a baker’s dozen back surgeries. Following the death of her husband, she struggled to adapt to living alone for the first time in her life. The truth is she was sad and dying long before any lockdowns were sanctioned, but my grieving heart wants something to blame. Global chaos and a national emergency seem like as good of excuses as any. I believe the isolation was just too much when combined with the uncertainty of being able to hold her tribe again.

Due to the COVID virus, my mother is dead.

Everything about my mother’s death has been touched by the pandemic. Due to the COVID virus, I wore a mask on the plane and social distanced through the airport to try to see her alive one more time. Due to the COVID virus, only one person could visit my mother per day and my sister had already been there by the time I landed. Due to the COVID virus, I could not ID the body in person because I had traveled by plane. Due to the COVID virus, the Coney was not serving my favorite food item that I can only get when I’m back in Michigan and might actually have felt like a comfort in such “unprecedented times.” Due to the COVID virus, I am sad.

Pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive, fatal lung disease. She was dying. But I think she might have had more time if not for self-quarantine. Not that it really matters, and it’s probably just grief, but it felt like she had more time before the isolation began. Thanks to the global pandemic and stay at home orders, she was completely alone with no end in sight. She couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. My sister and I are grown. We’re off in our own homes, living our own lives, with our own kids. The isolation from stay at home orders was more than she was willing to live with.

The last few years were not easy for her. Her husband and love of her life died in 2016. Months later I moved across the country with my newborn. My sister lived close enough but was busy with teenagers, including one immunocompromised child. Sure, we would send her pictures and videos often, but it wasn’t the same as being with her grandkids. My mother was all alone.

She liked not cleaning up after anyone else; eating whatever, whenever; and finally controlling the remote. It killed her not having any one to cook or clean for anymore and no one to watch a show with. My mother was a social creature who needed people.

She had chronic double pneumonia since about October. Neither my sister nor my mom’s friends felt they should risk violating the stay at home protections to visit unnecessarily. But this meant she was not allowed the company she needed to thrive.

“We are all in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.”

I have learned a lot about myself throughout the pandemic. I know I’m not alone in saying this time has caused some probably long overdue introspection. It is almost like we have been keeping ourselves so busy we wouldn’t have to do the real heavy thinking. *Insert head explosion emoji* Not all my revelations have been positive. I have faced some things that are making me reevaluate who I am versus who I want to be as a wife and mother. I realized I have so much room to grow. Like seriously fields and fields. If only we could unpack our real problems as easily as we can take off a mask.

I was so busy with my in-depth self-analysis that I wasn’t listening to my mother tell me she was giving up. She was screaming that the pandemic was too much, but I didn’t hear her until it was too late. She was so sad. My mother hurt her back when I was about six. She lived in pain for the rest of her life. Thirty years of physical, emotional, enduring pain. I’m afraid my mom was probably doing too much thinking also. At a time when she should have lived like she was dying; she was forced to self-isolate and self-reflect. It was all too much for her weary, tired soul.

Comfort amid chaos.

The pandemic has looked different for everyone. My pandemic was mostly good until my mom died. My kids and I played in the pool a lot. We cycled through 706 daily activities, so many snacks, and too much screen time. I love the quality time with my kids and nowhere to be. Sure, we have had tantrums, furloughs, and scorpions, but we’ve also had picnics, forts, bubble baths, and snuggles. Truly, it has been mostly great.

My mother had DVR, ice cream, and gardening. Which she wasn’t supposed to do because it meant she wasn’t wearing her oxygen. Where I have laughs and stories, she had quiet and loneliness. My mother was a genuine free spirit. She often said she was who she was, and it was too late to change her. Death was easier than living alone.

During, but unrelated to the pandemic.

As people kindly reach out, the conversations flow similarly. It starts by being asked how I am doing. I discuss whatever stage of grief I am in at the moment. They try to say something helpful, maybe they tell a story. I prefer something short that ends in whimsy; my attention span wanes.

Then I abruptly change the subject. (The work I have been doing while in quarantine has taught me that I do that because I am emotionally stunted and run away when things get deep.)

“How’s your pandemic?” I ask.

They recap me on what is probably the craziest thing to happen in our lifetime. I recap mine which probably flows back into my mother’s passing. I might take another spin on the feelings wheel. I try to keep this one brief because I know everyone has kids and lives they need to get back to and truly I just appreciate the call. They say something kind, then we disconnect.

People’s worlds have been in chaos as we try to adjust to homeschool, masks, and social distancing. The “new normal” for my mother was solitary confinement. I don’t envy her ruminations. She was facing being alone for the rest of her life. That knowledge must have been agony in these already unprecedented times.

Anti-bodies?

The differences in policy between my mother’s and my home state were staggering. My sister told me I needed to wear a mask to answer the door for pizza. Here in Arizona, everything is pretty much open. I do not believe we’re on any restrictions right now. If my mother had been healthy enough to get out here like she wanted, maybe she could have had more time. Or maybe that is just my grieving brain and wishful thinking.

I don’t think states or individuals should rush to get back to business as normal, but I do recognize that these lockdowns are not in the best interest of our mentally vulnerable populations. I understand that it is a very tenuous line to walk. As a recently diagnosed type one diabetic, I had no plans on leaving my bubble. I had only been in public and donned a mask twice before getting on a plane. My kids haven’t been anywhere in months.

I don’t want to be reckless, but I also worry about what all this is doing to my three-year-old. He asked to start school next year like some of his friends so after much soul searching, we were planning on preschool. Active shooter drills were scary enough, now I need to worry he is going to catch or transmit a disease that might kill me?

I miss not having almost daily tantrums. He may not understand why, but he feels my sad vibes and feeds off my anxiety. He misses his friends, his activities, his former life.

So did my mom. She wrote my sister and me a beautiful poem that I now realize was her goodbye note. She was done, but she loved us and wanted us to know. She missed when we were little. She missed having someone to care for. She longed for days when she could hug her people without hesitation. Sadly, the stay at home orders were extended in her state and days of hugging were not in her foreseeable future. She couldn’t live with that uncertainty.

The New Normal

As things do open back up, I hope people choose to embrace personal protections. We do still have immunocompromised people to look out for. We need to look at all sides. Yes, there is a lot of bad right now, but to paraphrase Tony Robbins, “you can’t blame your trauma for the bad, if you’re not willing to blame it for the good too.” There is a lot of good. Museum access from your couch, more FaceTimes with loved ones, and a chance to stop and smell the roses to name a few.

Together, as a community, we have an opportunity to focus on the good and reorganize the bad. I don’t know what the future holds for any of us. I’m sad knowing my mom will never find out. I do know there has never been a better time to reach out to those you love and just let them know you care. And don’t forget to wear your shades because the future is still so bright.