Elation. Relief. Grief. My 84-year-old parents got the Covid-19 vaccine this week, and I cycled through each of those emotions in the short span of 24 hours.
Elation because finally. From the moment we had to
cancel my mom’s birthday brunch a year ago, until today, each passing day has
felt like a precious gift. The day’s joy caught me by surprise, in part because
I didn’t actually believe it was going to happen. Trying to get them an appointment
required signing up on multiple lists, then trying to book one within seconds
of a text alert before they filled up. My sister and I joked that it felt just
like trying to get concert tickets by phone. At one point my sister succeeded
in getting my mom an appointment in town, and I got my dad one in the town
almost two hours away, which I bribed him to accept by promising I’d take him
to Costco afterwards (a favorite outing, which we had cut out during COVID-19).
But by an accident of timing, they both ended up getting the
vaccine locally. After a quick round of celebratory texts between my sisters, I
sat down and let the relief wash over me. I am not a runner but I imagine it feels
something akin to finishing a marathon—you are euphoric when you cross the
finish line, then immensely relieved that you didn’t crash and burn along the
way. And if the last year has been an exercise in anything, it’s of trying not
to crash and burn—the stakes were just too high.
Like so many, my sisters and I were suddenly thrust in the
role of having to parent our parents. We followed the science and realized
quickly that if one of them got sick, the odds were pretty high that we’d lose
them both. And though they could see the tragedy unfolding in Italy and then
New York, I believe their Fox News filter contributed to a sense of complacency
that we battled daily as we tried to convince them of the gravity of the
situation and the need to change their routine. For my dad, who is pretty
social, this meant giving up lunches with his friends and workouts with his
physical therapy pals. We shopped for them, and helped them stay connected to family
with zoom calls. But try as we might, the mysterious Dollar Store bag would
show up in their house full of his favorite prune juice (Dollar Store and
Safeway were absolutely off-limits due to poor mask and social distancing enforcement).
Thanks to Governor Newsom’s meal delivery program for seniors, they received
meals daily, but that didn’t stop my dad from having an occasional lunch
outside with friends. When my sister happened to observe his group sitting mask-less
and huddled up at a small café table, we realized this needed to stop as well.
The straw that nearly broke all the camels’ backs was church.
Both my parents attend weekly mass, my father even has the distinction of being
the youngest altar boy in this very senior congregation. But this Catholic
church continued to hold mass inside, in defiance of the health orders, which
effectively put a high-risk population all together in one old building (and found me
calling the priest on more than one occasion to complain). I’ll never forget
walking through all the questions we asked my parents when they claimed it was safe.
Besides the obvious questions about mask-wearing and the congregants sitting six
feet apart in their pews we went deeper: “Did he remove the holy water?” “Is he
touching the communion wafers?” “Is there singing?” “Are prayerbooks wiped
down?” My mom begged to go for their
anniversary, insisting that the secret of their marriage lasting all these
years was the fact that they’d attended mass on every anniversary (to which I
remember thinking that if their marriage failed this year it would be because
they’d never spent so much time in each other’s company). They ultimately went
to mass, but to an early service which seemed like a reasonable compromise.
They began to treat us, somewhat jokingly, as their jailers,
which got old pretty fast. We tried various approaches: we would eat together every
other week and make sure to update them on what was happening locally, both in
terms of COVID-19 in the county, but also connecting it to the daily reality of
life outside their house. Our coastal town is very popular with tourists, and
it’s remote, so people from other parts of California defied their own shelter
in place orders and flocked here for a change of scenery. This explained why checkout
counters were wrapped in plexiglass, but also why shopping at the small market put
them at greater risk. My sister and I frequently ended up in a good cop/bad cop
routine as we talked through the latest infraction and its potential consequences.
And yes, we were asked to back off, which we would try to do. But this meant we
saw them less, because we made it clear that their actions also put our
families at risk.
Our other two sisters would step in when needed; at one
point we each sent them a letter about how much we needed and wanted them to
stay alive, which was an emotionally brutal exercise early on in the pandemic. Add to this crazy family dynamic, a black
sheep sibling who would periodically try to undermine our efforts by trying to
convince my parents that hydroxychloroquine was the cure, or that they were
better off avoiding the vaccine and waiting for natural herd immunity to take
hold. You can see why the relief that I experienced on vaccine day was
monumental.
And as I, like many others, exhale a sigh of relief so great
that it carries all of these moments and memories into the wind, I feel crushed
by the thing I have not faced head on: grief. At various times during the past
year my mom has said something to this effect, “we’ve lived a good life, if it’s
time for us to go, it’s ok.” And while that might be a parent’s natural way of
reassuring their child, I found myself having to repeatedly force her to see my
side of that same coin. It was, and is, unbearable to imagine them both dying
alone and without family, especially if there’s something we can do about it.
Also, in our efforts to protect them, I found myself worrying
about my teenager’s own potentially risky behavior and saying things to her
like, “you cannot be the reason your grandparents get sick and die.” What a
terrible thing to say, and to write now. No grandchild should have to carry
that, and yet, the gravity of the situation necessitated this caution.
So, the grief will take many forms. The ongoing grief for
the people who have died during this pandemic, and their loved ones who have to
somehow pick up the pieces of their lives and go on. Grief for the toll this
pandemic has taken on the selfless health care workers who have given so much. The
mourning for what our communities have lost, which may not be fully appreciated
until we come together again, into the sunlight.
But my tears today – of joy, of relief, of grief—are for my beloved
parents, who for now, are mercifully with us and looking forward to their own eventual
resumption of life as they knew it. It is only right to close with gratitude,
for this, and for my beloved sisters, whose love is the beating heart at the
core of our family. The day of his vaccination, my father sent a bottle of
champagne along with a beautiful note to my sister and me. He expressed his own
gratitude, and understanding—in hindsight—of our efforts this year, and a
pledge to do his best for the duration of the pandemic. He even offered to give
up the Dollar Store. Cue the tears.
