When we first went inside with COVID, I think most people supposed that we were going to be out for a couple of weeks or so. People made short term goals: lose ten pounds; learn Spanish; make sourdough bread, finally; get back to their guitar.
My trajectory was slightly different. On April 2nd, two weeks into quarantine, I was at a nursery in Oakland with my friend Kathleen, masked and distanced when I got a phone call on my husband’s cell from my neighbor Dave who said that Bruce had been in a bike accident and was pretty beat up.
We had wanted a walk so we were parked most of a mile away. Thankfully it was downhill and I sped home to find Dave still with Bruce who looked very banged up and was cradling his left arm. He was in great pain. We went to the ER where they had me wait in the parking lot (COVID), referred him to an orthopedic surgeon and gave him a prescription for very inadequate pain pills which I picked up.
It’s a long complicated story, complicated because of COVID and because of his many fractures which later sent off a clot and later caused serious sepsis and in between he sat on the couch moaning and I, who have no discernible talent in these areas (renewed respect for all health and caregivers) had to give him injections three times a day through a port on his chest that eventually exploded, and drive him to physical therapy ten minutes after he got out of his 10 hour surgery.
Not gonna lie, it was very, very daunting. However, unlike all my friends I did actually lose ten pounds, effortlessly. on the tseuris diet, had no wish to sort Tupperware or grow a yeast starter and my Spanish remains pretty ‘malo’.
Also unlike all my friends, I had no wish to interact with the world. My small world consisted of keeping Bruce alive, walking the dog and keeping us fed. The quiet peace of a beautiful afternoon sitting in the backyard with him, as little by little he regained his strength. and more importantly, his sense of humor, kept me busier than I could have imagined.
So, no, I wasn’t waiting for the Big World to resume after COVID, I was waiting to see that smile, that careless joy that sometimes crosses my husband’s sweet, familiar face. And when I finally saw it again, it was more than enough.