What We Take for Granted: Life In the Middle of a Pandemic

We went for a neighborhood drive on a grey, chilly and wet Saturday evening in early April. It was just the two of us in the car. You could call it a leisurely sightseeing tour of familiar homes from the comfort and safety of a moving vehicle. No masks necessary, nobody disembarked.

As we explored this street and the other street, that cul-de-sac and the next cul-de-sac, we commented on architecture, landscaping, and paint colors. The simplicity of the outing lifted our spirits. We held hands as we drove, telling each other how much we needed this little respite from the surreal existence of living in the coronavirus pandemic.

Oh what we take for granted.

We are both very lucky. I’ve been working from home since March 17, as have most of my coworkers. My bosses, all the way up the ladder to the company president, immediately had the compassion and humanity to keep us out of harm’s way. The transition was logistically seamless thanks to our fabulous IT department. Emotionally, well, it’s been an adjustment. But we’re in this together, so there is strength in numbers.

My husband, Steve, can’t work from home. As a respiratory therapist at a heart hospital, he’s in that essentials list. But so far so good. That he works at a specialty hospital certainly helps keep him out of potentially dangerous situations.

Life in these COVID-19 times keeps moving. I have a homemade mask now, graciously donated by one of Steve’s coworkers. I wear it during my neighborhood walks, which I take daily, and my once a week trips to Sprouts for groceries. Steve uses a hospital mask for the same. I wash my hands a gabillion times a day. I make all of my meals at home, which as a vegan had already been a part of my day-to-day routine. Everything else that you can think of I’ve been mail ordering for home delivery.

So much has changed, and yet so much remains the same.

It is during a national crisis, one that stealthily made its way into the homes of everybody and anybody, that you see what’s always been there with different eyes. There is a Japanese maple tree in our back yard that is full of gorgeous red leaves. This lovely tree struggled a little bit after being planted more than a year ago. It stood bare and pale for months. All of a sudden, as February turned to March, it donned its crimson wardrobe.

I have the perfect view of that Japanese maple from a window in my bedroom. Every day, as I make my bed and get dressed for “work” in my attempt to embrace some semblance of normality, I stop for a minute to contemplate the Japanese maple. It brings me peace. It brings me solace. It fills me with hope that we will all weather this storm in as close to one piece as possible.

The coronavirus hit home. I have a coworker in the hospital struggling with the horrible disease. He is improving, thankfully, and we are all breathing a sigh of relief. But there’s no escaping the reality that all of us are vulnerable. That coworker is 20 years younger than I am, healthy, vibrant. I enjoyed a couple of lunch outings with him, and we have worked closely on a couple of occasions. Learning about his struggle hit me hard, as he became the first person I know personally that is fighting the virus.

Perhaps this is all a wake-up call for society, for us hustle-and-bustle human beings that get lost in our own consumption without clearly understanding how it affects the balance of the universe. Yes, that probably sounds quite existential. But the message is simple: We cannot take life and each other for granted. We cannot continue to live as if nothing and nobody is living around us.

When we make it through this ordeal, and we will make it through, let us not forget what really matters. I’m lucky to have a beautiful home and a gorgeous husband – inside and out. I’m lucky to have a great job that allows me to keep working, keep earning a paycheck, all while remaining safe from a deadly scourge. I’m lucky to have the luxury of taking a neighborhood drive to admire houses not far from my own.

And I’m lucky to have a handsome Japanese maple displaying its beautiful red leaves just outside my bedroom window. May I never take it for granted.