To my future grandchild… life during COVID 19

Because I’m sure that at some point in your life your Mom or Dad will talk about Covid 19, the coronavirus, social distancing or how in 2020 the world changed, I wanted to write you a letter explaining how I feel during this pandemic.

I started writing this post on April 9, 2020, and rain is pouring from the sky which is unusual in Southern California, where I live. It has rained for the past few days and even though it makes me feel a bit depressed not seeing the sun, my plants are happy and so is the environment because we always seem to be in a drought. I’m fifty years old and sometimes I still think I’m twenty-five and can take on the world and other times I feel exhausted, worn out and like an old lady. I’ve gotten in the habit of calling myself an old lady and your grandpa is always telling me “stop saying that, you aren’t old Tiffani!” When you are young, like yourself you crave getting old and having more independence and when you are finally old, you just want to be young again. Enjoy each day child. Always end your day looking back and finding something good that happened because you will never get that day back. There is always something good to be found in even the worst of days.

As you read this you will quickly learn that I have a propensity for going off-topic but that’s when my best thoughts occur, so I try to allow my mind to take me on a journey and rein it in when I get too far off course. So back to the coronavirus. As I’m sure you know, you had an aunt named Tiara who passed away at sixteen years old. Because she was always sick and spent weeks and sometimes months in the hospital each year, living through COVID 19 isn’t quite as scary for us as other families. I’m used to fearing every virus and flu as they always had the potential to threaten Tiara’s life but now that Tiara is in Heaven, I’m only scared for all the families who have children like your auntie and for my parents, my in-laws, my aunts and uncles and anyone who has a compromised immune system. I worry about them, not myself.

Before COVID 19 our world already seemed to be falling apart. The suicide rate has skyrocketed over the past few years and it’s common to hear about a teen, a mom or a father taking their own lives in our community. It’s truly devastating and yet nothing seems to be changing. Family life consists of kids going to school, lots of after school activities to keep the kids scheduled from morning until night, competitive sports at a very young age, volunteering to build up high school resumes, both parents working and everyone does all this while staring at their smartphone most of the day. Everyone in the family is tired, overworked, irritable and once each day is finally over each family member seems to retreat to their own room, isolated from one another. Everyone wears earbuds or headphones connected to their devices so if you need to ask someone a question you need to repeat it several times until they realize you are talking to them. Your grandfather always has in at least one earbud and because he already has some hearing loss he is always saying: “What, are you talking to me?” I sometimes get frustrated and say, “Never mind, it wasn’t important.” And so people in families don’t spend much time together because everyone is too busy. Without Tiara forcing us to spend tons of time together, our family is also guilty of this distancing. When your Mom was growing up we always had family dinner together every night and I’m so grateful for those years. Because I needed to stay home to care for Tiara, your Mom, and your aunt, only your grandpa worked and money was always tight. It’s very expensive to live in Orange County and with only one salary it’s even more difficult. Your grandpa has always found a way to take care of us but it hasn’t been easy. We survived the recession and now we have to deal with the financial aspects of the Coronavirus which is extremely hard for so many people.

The media is telling us the coronavirus came from Wuhan, China from a open market that sold wild animals. They think someone ate a bat infected with the coronavirus and that’s how this all started. Lots of different conspiracy theories are circulating on the internet, but I tend to believe it came from a bat. It’s hard to imagine how one person eating an infected bat could cause a pandemic, but apparently that’s what happened. The confusing part is knowing who to believe and what information you can trust. You see when I was growing up everything reported on the news or written in a newspaper was deemed to be a fact. This is not the case anymore. The news is no longer delivered without bias. It seems that if you listen to a conservative news station you learn something completely different than is presented on a liberal news station, which most of them tend to be liberal. Then on top of the news stations, you have every person with a blog, or a social media account spouting their opinions which are not anything but opinions and people take them as facts. It’s kind of a disaster trying to figure out what is fact and what is fiction in our world.

In addition, our President, Donald Trump is a very controversial person. Some people hate him so much they want to flee the country and become a citizen of a different country and think they might die if he gets re-elected. Others think he is doing a great job and pray for his re-election. It is a very divided time in our world and people have a hard time getting along where politics are concerned. I tend to reside somewhere in the middle of these two camps and have stopped discussing politics with anyone because I tend to believe they are all a bit untrustworthy. It’s hard navigating through this life trusting much of anyone because we are constantly being bombarded by scam emails, hacked credit card accounts or phone calls by thieves who pretend they have kidnapped your child and won’t let you get off the phone until you go to a bank and wire them money. They play a voice recording of your child to you over the phone. This recording has been stolen from a recording your child posted on social media and then they manipulated. This terrifying experience has happened to two of my friends in the past few months. I can’t even imagine the fear the parents endured because of these horrible people. Just last week someone hacked into my bank account and stole $1900. I do so much online that my accounts always seem to be compromised. Several months ago someone charged $8000 on my Lowe’s credit card, $4300 on my Home Depot card and several hundred on my Old Navy. The cards were in my wallet and yet somehow someone purchased tons of items in the stores with my cards. Luckily every time my bank account or credit cards have been compromised the bank or agency allows fixes the problem right away. It’s very sad that we live under attack from thieves and now from the coronavirus.

Anyways, once America realized the coronavirus was coming to the United States again the country divided even further. Those who believed the threat was real and those who thought we were overreacting. Once the government started talking about social distancing and quarantining at home everyone started to panic. And you know what happened? People went to the stores and started buying out all the toilet paper. I mean entire shopping baskets full of only toilet paper. It was the weirdest phenomenon. Of course, the hoarders also bought out all the hand sanitizers, bleach wipes, and paper towels to the point that I still, after a month, can’t find a regular size bottle of hand sanitizer in the store. It’s crazy. The coronavirus doesn’t cause diarrhea so I guess everyone was trying to find a way to feel in control and buying toilet paper was their answer. I still don’t understand and refused to give in to the hysteria and hoarding. Of course, some people found this as an opportunity to make money and tried selling these supplies on Amazon and eBay for exorbitant prices. Amazon and Ebay shut down their accounts for price gouging and apparently some of them have storage units full of toilet paper and can’t sell it. I so don’t feel sorry for those people who once again were trying to take advantage of a scary situation to make money. Money, greed, and envy seem to be the root of all evil, in my opinion.

On March 4, 2020, our governor, Gavin Newsom declares a state of emergency and school districts decided to close and find a way to teach the students online. Conventions, concerts and any large gathering with more than fifty people were canceled. The governor and president Trump asked everyone who wasn’t “essential” to STAY HOME! Who was deemed essential? Truck drivers, grocery store workers, anyone in the medical field obviously and luckily your grandpa was considered essential. People still need to buy cars and get them fixed but a large portion of the dealership was put on work furlough. As more and more people were forced to stay home, people lost their jobs which is devastating to our economy. I’m sure your history teacher can teach you about all the economic issues. I want to tell you about the social/psychological stuff because that’s what I care about.

So now entire families are forced to spend twenty-four hours a day together at home. It’s like a restart button for the universe. Our world has been focused on all the wrong values and now we are forced to focus on the good stuff. Family, health, and God. As you know, I’m a big believer in God and I find it very interesting that it is Holy Week. I have been missing going to Church but God is everywhere and it appears our world needs to be more focused on him. Well, life wasn’t that much different for us because I have been working from home for years but it has horrible for all the high school and college seniors graduating. There won’t be any graduation ceremonies, no senior proms, no grad night and no grad parties. It is very sad, but there is nothing we can do about it. If someone has a birthday, people drive by the house and honk their horns as a way of celebrating. I still walk with some of my friends but I wear a mask, walk far apart from them and do not hug hello or goodbye.

It is now April 16, as I took two weeks before I published this posts. In the past two weeks things have gotten even crazier. You are no longer allowed to walk into a store unless you are wearing a mask. Today I waited in line at Costco and it took thirty minutes to get inside. The line was around the building as each person waiting with a cleaned cart, mask on their face and many were also were disposable gloves, including myself. Once inside the store I felt like I was in the twilight zone. The over heard speaker keep repeating the following statement:” Please keep on your face mask, do not stop to visit with other shoppers and stay six feet apart from one another.” The store was very quiet and of course they were out of my celery which was the reason I went in the first place. So many businesses are closed that the employment rate is at an all time high and it is very scary for our economy, BUT families are spending tons of times together. People are reading more books, families are making tik tok videos together, I see families out taking nightly walks, I think at the end of this horrible situation some good will result. Stores and many restaurants were actually closed on Easter Sunday, which was really nice.

This is what I propose for our future. We continue to care for the elderly and most vulnerable as we should have been doing all long and have failed in so many ways. We reopen our businesses and get people back to work. We go back to our physicians for our missed mammograms, biopsies and physicals which we need to save lives but have avoided during Covid-19. We continue to social distance six feet apart in public, wear masks in public, and continue good hand washing techniques which many people never used in the past. With all this we will continue to save lives, put money in the pockets of those who can’t afford to go another day without a paycheck and we will have learned how to be better humans and care for our environment and our neighbors. Just my opinion…..

xoxo tiffani