Sunday, April 19th, 2020

B.C./A.C. (Before Coronavirus/After Coronavirus

I think it’s appropriate for me to begin with my experience of being sick with COVID. After all, this is what inspired me to make a life change--I mean, not total, but just to re-evaluate where I am at this moment and make the big decision to take a year off from official classes at rabbinical school, to begin developing my Hashpa’ah (Spiritual Direction) practice, and to create this here website. I wouldn’t have the time or energy for any of it if it weren’t for that. 

So here I am, and here’s my personal story. 

I know there are millions, literally millions of stories, as millions have gotten sick with coronavirus over these past months.

I begin with: To remember the blessing of just being alive.

Why is that so hard? 

To just be. 

It’s true that we are human beings, and not human doings, as Reb Zalman used to like to point out. Maybe the reason we are called “beings” is that we need to be reminded daily of this fact, especially in this doing-driven world we live in. What coronavirus has highlighted even more is that we need to get back to the “being” part.

Before we got sick with coronavirus, I remember thinking with frustration at people’s complaints of being told to stay inside. My heart went out to those who can’t work from home, just barely able to survive, and it still does. It’s truly a privilege to be able to work from home. 

I also couldn’t get this image of Anne Frank and her family out of mind, and what it was like to be forced into hiding for years, not even knowing if they would be found and killed. How fortunate are we that we are not under siege (not of this kind, anyway), that we can still access food, that we do not live with the fear of soldiers knocking on our doors and taking us away (not most of us). How grateful that we do not have to stay inside completely, unable to see the light of day. We have iphones and FaceTime and the internet, and delivery systems, even if they are slow at the moment. The slowness and some degree of scarcity that exists are reminders that we have gotten very, very spoiled by the fast delivery system we know we shouldn’t even be using. 

Now here I am, after Coronavirus first hit my family, just a few weeks since my husband Oswaldo returned from the hospital, where he was literally on the edge between life and death, and I myself am still experiencing the after-effects of the virus that laid me flat for weeks. And I’m feeling the pressure to get back to “my work.” I haven’t had the brain power to do any reading. Instead, I’ve been savoring the beauty of life, and I must say that this feeling permeates much more of my daily life than was the case before I got Coronavirus. 

With my slowly building energy, I have prepared for and cleaned up from Passover, cooked and eaten delicious foods, gone for walks in the sunshine, looked at the blossoms and flowers of springtime. I have been grateful to be alive and for my husband to be with me in the face of so much surrounding death. I remember often that it could have been otherwise. I might have been experiencing an extreme kind of grief at this moment, having lost my husband, unable to comfort myself or my daughters, one who lives with me and another who I wouldn’t be able to see, wondering where my husband’s body was, picturing him in a mass grave, like others I know, unable to have a proper funeral, wondering about my future without him, unable to function. 

But I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. 

Instead, I remember the incredible joy at having a deep craving for food after weeks of illness, and thinking how good it is to simply have an appetite.

 

I remember a friend delivering a hamburger she had bought me in the street. How I savored it, how much joy it gave me. For at least a week, all I wanted was meat (and I’m normally mostly vegetarian).

I remember the support of friends, teachers, rabbis, sometimes in the middle of the night. 

I remember nights of panic, no sleep, trouble breathing, tracking fevers and blood oxygen levels, watching movies just to keep my mind otherwise occupied, surviving on adrenaline.

I remember phone calls with Oswaldo in the hospital, hearing him getting stronger, crying as I listened to his stories of “seeing the light” and feeling the hundreds of healing prayers from our community, extending around the world. 

I remember saying goodbye to him at the door, kissing him on the forehead as the paramedics gave him oxygen. He couldn’t even make eye contact with me. And I remember thinking I might not see him again. 

I remember running to the bathroom after frenzied cries from my daughter, finding him passed out in the bathroom, dehydrated from a week of fever, and shaking him back to consciousness, yelling to call 911. 

I remember with amazement the three pairs of paramedics that visited our house, bringing peace, calm, caring and kindness, despite the personal risk to themselves. 

I remember breaking down with Rebecca when we closed the door behind him, crying out, “Him, of all people...he’s supposed to be the strong one…!”

I remember calling Dina, my reiki teacher and friend, and crying with her as I told her that they’d taken him away to the hospital, because that’s how it felt: like they’d taken him away. Dina immediately gathered her “forces” and within 20 minutes, she was surrounding Oswaldo, and then me and Rebecca, with healing energy. Afterwards she told me that Mother Mary had shown up right away to pour her healing energy into Oswaldo. (She was sorry, but Mother Mary was Jewish.)

I remember community members and friends shopping for us, picking up necessities. 

I remember that Friday when Oswaldo went to the hospital. A community member had shopped for us for Shabbat. I don’t know how, but after the reiki, Rebecca and I were somehow able to enjoy our meal, reassured that Oswaldo was getting the care he needed, energetically, spiritually, and physically, after 6 harrowing days. and eating the potato kugel, chicken soup and rotisserie chicken with such gusto. There had been two visits from paramedics, a visit to Urgent Care, and finally the third call to 911 when he finally couldn’t fight anymore and agreed to go to the hospital. 

I remember the night of trying to keep his fever down, torturing him with icy washcloths on his body as he shivered, and pounding on his back to loosen the pneumonia, all while I was still sick and weak myself. 

I remember the gratefulness I felt for his healing, and for the nurses and doctors and other caretakers in the hospital who gave such love and care despite their fear for their own lives and families.

 

All this gave me hope for humanity, despite the ongoing horrible news, despite our government and our president.