We lost my Uncle Gary to COVID a few days ago. My aunt and uncle were hospitalized with it December 21st. The first few days seemed like they both were making progress. Then my uncle took a turn for the worse, and the deterioration was swift. Due to COVID restrictions, his family could not be at his side as he passed, an additional burden to the grief they bear.
Most of my memories of my Uncle Gary are from my childhood, before their family moved farther away and we didn’t see them very much. As a result, the memories are rather vague. I remember him as a dark-haired man with twinkling eyes behind his glasses, and I always seem to remember him smiling or laughing.
He could be warm, but he was also a private man, so I suppose it is not surprising that I did not know him very well as an adult, combined with all the time living farther away. He was a Vietnam veteran, and like many of those soldiers, I suspect the war never quite left him. Although proud of his service, I always have trouble picturing him as a soldier, because I always felt he had a gentle soul.
Like me, he was interested in genealogy, although of course his family was not mine (his wife is my blood relative). His line was German, and he read and spoke German well. My line is also German and when I ran into a document that needed translating, he helped me out.
When the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11, he walked for miles from his job in locked-down central DC until he could find transportation home–a now white-haired man just wanting to get home to the family he loved.
And he did deeply love his family. That was always crystal clear. His wife, his sons, and his grandson meant the world to him. They will miss him more than words can say.
The virus stole another soul this week, and we mourn his loss. Godspeed, Uncle Gary.
Happy New Year 2021 – CoronaLife Day 292
I think I speak for many people when I say there has never been a year I wanted to see the back of more than 2020. This year has lasted a decade, and I can’t wait to turn the page.
Having had a milestone birthday this year (thanks, 2020!), I am old enough to know that turning the calendar doesn’t magically make all our problems disappear. But it is a time to reset and take the lessons learned in the previous year and carry them forward.
So what have I learned in 2020? First, I learned that there are many things out of my control. This year was certainly a lesson in that, if nothing else. The coronavirus took any plans we had for this year and dumped them into the incinerator. The sphere of what I can actually control is a lot smaller than my ego would like to think it is.
Second, sometimes I have to just let things go. My anxiety disorder has been in overdrive this year, and that wreaks havoc on my writing. My creativity vanishes into the malaise. And I have to be okay with that, because there’s not much I can do about it. My creativity has been a roller coaster this year. I have days, even a week at a time, where the words come and I drive forward. Then a desert for weeks. I have had to learn to not beat myself up over that (a lesson I am still learning).
Third, I have had to learn to be less of an introvert. Wait, wait, wait, I hear you saying. You are stuck home, rarely going out, seeing nobody outside your family. How does that make you LESS of an introvert?
It is counter-intuitive, I grant you. I am an introvert’s introvert. I need alone time to recharge. And by alone time, I mean completely alone, no one else in the house. Not in another room, not on another floor, but not here AT ALL. Since March I have had both my daughter and my husband home 24/7. I love them dearly and I am so grateful we have the ability to be safe together. But I have had to get used to much less alone time (read: none), and figure out how to recharge anyway.
Fourth, it has highlighted many of the inequities that are baked into our country, and the desperate need to address them moving forward. I for one do not want to simply “go back to normal” because so much of what was normal was not working. This year that has shaken the world to the foundation has not merely exposed the cracks we have been papering over for decades, it wrenched those cracks wide open. We need to do better. Business as usual is no longer acceptable.
Finally, it has been a lesson in gratitude. I know, without a doubt, that my family has been incredibly lucky throughout this year. We have been able to work from home with no loss of income, and our immediate extended family have so far come through physically unscathed. For all the things we missed and were saddened to not have or do this year, we still have the people that we love, and that is everything.
I intend to take those lessons and go forward into 2021 knowing that we still have a long road ahead of us. None of the problems we face will vanish with the ball drop. But if we truly learn the lessons of 2020, we can make 2021 the beginning of something new, different, and better.
And by the end of the year, I might even get to be alone in the house again.
I wish all of you and your loved ones a healthy, happy, and much, much better 2021. Be safe, and have a Happy New Year.