Here I sit, alone in a quiet house on Easter morning. My husband did not sleep well last night so he took my suggestion and went back to bed to get more sleep. For all intents and purposes time has stopped. It does not matter when we sleep or when we are up because there are no demands on our schedule. For the first time in my life, there is no where to go and no one I can meet with. As I sit here, I am imagining so many others who are experiencing this alone, living the national “stay at home” response to covid19, and I think it must feel so isolating and lonely to not have another life force to exchange thoughts and feelings with in this confinement. I sympathize greatly with all who are alone!

In some ways this time warp feels ominous, similar to the calm before the storm. We read about New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and how the reality of this virus has hit them head on. There is no time for reflection for people in these cities because they are in the middle of an all out war with this virus that many have lost. The rest of us, reading about it or watching it on t.v., cannot really grasp the enormity of what is happening because our communities are experiencing this onslaught to a much lesser degree. We realize that it is still on its way towards the rest of us and feel great anxiety.

As I write this, our daughter is into the end of her 3rd week of ongoing covid symptoms. For her they are shortness of breath, exhaustion, and fever. She was hit hard in the beginning, laying low for over a week to 10 days before she went to the ER where they gave her I.V. Fluids and tests to determine if it was flu, strep or pneumonia, with a negative on these. They also gave her the covid test and it came back negative, which we have since heard during that period of time, between 25% and 50% of the tests were reading as false negatives. Of course there is no proving this conclusively, but our daughter has said repeatedly that the symptoms she is experiencing are unlike anything she has experienced before, and as a result, she suffers anxiety which complicates the breathing issue.

We have been on the phone with her repeatedly, trying to offer support and comfort during the times she is weepy, but we cannot do for her what a person would do for her in other times of sickness, and that is physical contact. Everyone is told to stay away from people infected with covid. So technology allows for her to see us and hear our voices which is somewhat helpful, but it is a poor substitute to having someone there with her to physically take care of her. Her personality is not weak. She has been an intensive care nurse for years and has been at the bedside of many dying patients. She understands illness, yet this feeling of illness has really frightened her.

Today she sounds better and says she feels she is 50% on her way to wellness and instead of it being an uphill battle it is now dow the other side. So that is a great relief. A great-great relief!

I look at the covid interactive map and can see that most of the country because of the lockdown are having a much less severe reaction to the virus than what has happened in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana. So far, so good! What will be interesting to see is when they begin opening things up, which they have to do at some point to prevent the economy from collapsing, but what happens then? Only time will tell.

Out of curiosity, I checked to see how many deaths happen each regular year in the U.S. and found….

Deaths and Mortality

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

Of course these numbers do not include the deaths that will be added by covid19, but I must admit, I was surprised by how big the number was for deaths in the U.S. in a single normal year.

Death is always with us. Every single day each one of us has the potential to be added to the statistical numbers. it’s just that we rarely think about it until we, ourselves, are made aware of a weakness or an illness in our body by our Dr who may tell us we are on limited time.

We live in modern times and unlike plague infestations in the past, we can take our “stay at home” initiative and make the best of it. We can tell our loved ones all the things we want them to hear from us before we die. We can prepare ourselves spiritually for what may lie ahead. We can take this time to go through our things and determine to whom we want to leave certain mementos, things that matter to us that they can remember us by.

On the other side of this, we can write, paint, read, garden, watch movies, meditate, read devotions and the Bible. We now have all the time we used to complain we did not have, right here right now! It sounds kind of like a glimpse at what heaven may be like doesn’t it?

Because I am a person of high risk, I have made a commitment to myself to stay at home until either a vaccine is created or a therapeutic therapy is developed to keep me from being pulled under! Lots of time to read, write, paint, garden and have conversations with our maker. Aren’t we fortunate to live in modern times?

Today is a new day! Easter was yesterday and it was a great reminder that we have another life to which we can look forward with hope and excitement of things to come. Today the sun is shining and the leaves are shooting off of branches all over the place. Spring has arrived and it is a sign of new life. I think I shall go out and enjoy it!

Jjb/April 12, 2020