Sickness-induced insult to grief-stricken injury, Andy and I have finally been officially visited by the COVID fairy, lending this already-dismal month even more of a tainted pallor. I suppose it was only a matter of time before one, and then both, of us got it. Funerals of fathers are unavoidable events, and maybe the universe wanted me to be absolutely stilled to take it all in. As it was, I came down with the symptoms first, immediately testing and isolating upon being positive, which left me mostly secluded in the attic at a time when I really didn’t want to be far from Andy or family. Alas, life isn’t as merciful as we’d like it to always be, and I took the hours as they came, alternately reading more of Thich Nhat Hahn, watching the limp Amazon Prime line-up, and struggling through the work hours when my brain was scrambled on practically no-sleep.
What I will remember of this hazy period of mourning I cannot predict, and what good it might be doing is equally unforeseeable. There was a moment when I was hurriedly making some ginger tea, and I was pouring it out into the cup and I accidentally poured it all over my hand, resulting in a brief burst of pain. Not quite boiling, it smarted and stung but thankfully left no serious burn. It was the emotional ache that hurt more – the feeling of being helpless and alone and missing my Dad while being exhausted, drained and sick.
Physically, this is a nightmare – the fever and chills alternating with profound and immediate spells of sweating and overheating, pain of the muscles and joints and skin, labored breathing and a sore throat – none of which makes it anywhere near easy to sleep – so hours and entire nights go by in suspended unrest. The attic is fine for the kids, but for a middle-aged man accustomed to the comfort of our European-topped king bed, and the reassuring mound of Andy beside me, it was like being exiled.
I text my friends a flurry of NyQuil-inspired messages – silly, nonsensical things of whatever comes into my mind, the way I used to do when I was out drinking and first leaning into that tipsy feeling of abandon, back in a time when I didn’t have to miss fathers or retail jobs, when we could rightfully enjoy youth’s indulged refusals of responsibility. We didn’t know what a luxury it was, or maybe we did, and being young made it ok to let it flit away.
And so I sit here writing this all down, trying to forge this time into my head where not much sticks anymore, where not much even seems to matter, and it helps. It helps a little.
